Watermelon: Probably pointless

Way back in March I planted some watermelon seeds. Watermelon is supposed to germinate and grow to transplantable size in about two months. I waited.

But after a couple months, not even a tiny root was found on any of the planted seeds. I called the whole thing off three weeks ago and mixed the used soil into the compost pile.

A strange thing happened. While I was transplanting the tomatoes, I used some of the composted soil and found a watermelon seed that had sprouted. It was really tiny and had obviously sprouted very recently. I dug that little guy out and popped him into another planter.

He's visible here in this picture. The seed shell is still wrapped around the two cotyledons (first leaves), but it has pushed its way out of the soil by about 3cm.


Watermelons require about 2.5 square meters of space to grow, but I'm going to try growing it upright so that it doesn't spread all over the ground. I saw a system that uses a mesh to hold up the plant and hanging nets to cradle the fruits.

Honestly, I don't have high hopes for a productive watermelon plant, but I'm looking forward to trying!

Tomatoes: Sprouts

It's spring time here in Tokyo, but you wouldn't know it if you stepped outside. We've had a week-long cold snap here which has really put a damper on cherry blossom viewing. Usually the cherry trees are in full bloom, but due to the cold many are buds haven't opened yet.

Today is a bit warmer, but it still doesn't quite feel like spring has sprung.

The tomatoes I planted in the first week of March are sprouting. The cold hasn't affected them as much as I had expected, and all 16 pots have tiny little sprouts poking up through the soil.

As I mentioned before, each pot is planted with 3 seeds in the expectation that the majority of seeds will likely fail to germinate. That 16 sprouts have appeared is pretty astonishing to me, since I wasn't expecting so many to actually make it.

These plants will continue to grow in the pot until they are about 20cm or so. My notes show that the plants should be ready for transplant in late May.