Have you thought about growing a watermelon with hydroponics?
Watermelons are a popular snack, especially in warmer climates where their high water volume is a useful commodity.
Hydroponically growing food is an exciting way to be able to enjoy this summer fruit, but how do you do it?
You will want to think about the pH value, the nutrients, the light, the temperature and a supporting structure among other things. However, once you have the set up and ready to go, growing watermelon in this way is fairly straight forward and totally worth the try.
Hydroponic System
Prior to getting started, you will need to make sure your system is appropriate for growing watermelons in. Luckily, most hydroponic systems are just fine.
If you want to grow more than one watermelon plant, an ebb and flow system is the best option out of all of them.
An ebb and flow system provides nutrients to plants using only one reservoir, so you won’t have to continuously check to make sure that each individual plant has what it needs.
Now, if you don’t have space for an ebb and flow system, not to worry.
You can still manage to grow a couple of watermelon plants inside a floating hydroponic system, but you will need to make sure you adjust the nutrient level for each individual plant.
This can become labor intensive.
Trellis or Other Support Structure
In addition to all of the typical considerations for growing plants hydroponically, watermelons will also require some sort of support for them to grow upwards, otherwise, you will just have a mess in the water.
You will also need to support the watermelons as they grow, otherwise they will just break off the vines before you are ready to harvest them.
An easy way to support the fruits is to use old tights. Tie the tights to the trellis in the back of the hydroponic unit.
Key Takeaway: Make sure the plant and its fruits have enough support to keep them upright.
What Nutrients Are Needed?
For watermelons, a standard general purpose fertilizer should be perfectly suitable.
Start off with a lower level of nutrients, and then add more as the plant grows.
This way, you won’t end up with wear concentrated nutrients in the water, but will make sure your plant has more than enough to eat.
Your individual plant will probably have some recommendations of what it needs, so do your homework, since watermelon plants can vary quite a bit.
How Much Light Should They Have?
In order for watermelons to mature and have naturally sweet fruit, they need to flower and be pollinated from the ground up.
If your setup does not have enough natural light, you will either need to supplement your natural light with grow lighting, or you’ll have to find alternative fruit, as watermelon requires up to ten hours of light a day to honour their life cycle.
If they don’t hit this target, they will just stop growing and developing fruit.
Growth Medium
Even though you will be growing your watermelon in the hydroponic system, you will still need a medium for the watermelon’s roots to grow into.
You have a number of different options here. Some may use gravel and sand, while others prefer to utilize rock wool, pelleted shale, or pea gravel.
You ultimately do, however, want a growing medium that can hold water very well.
You can certainly use coconut coir, pine bark shavings, and peat moss, If you want to.
You can even also use vermiculite or you can use synthetic or artificial growing media that is made for hydroponic systems.
However, you want to keep in mind that you want the water to pass through the growing media, so you want to avoid anything too dense or that will be easily washed away by the flow of the water.
Something like sand can be used, but can be mixed with something like clay growth media with a better water retention.
Space Requirements
Sure, watermelons grow to be large plants and you may be wondering how many you can fit into your system.
When you crowd these plants together, they may start to grow into one another and make harvesting difficult.
They will begin to contend for water and nutrients, and you will not have any strong plants, only small, weak plants.
It is best to space them out, and give them a distance of about six to twelve feet apart for each plant. The smaller varieties may take less space, but don’t cram them either.
A few healthy plants are better than a lot of sickly, starving plants.
Works Fine: You may realize that you only have room for one watermelon, don’t worry; you will get a lot of fruit!
Temperature Requirements
Watermelons do not like cold weather, so you want to try to keep the temperature at, or slightly above, 70 degrees F at all times.
If you know that the temperature will drop greatfully, even below 60 degrees F, you should attempt to insulate your plants with layers of wool or other materials to prevent frost from damaging your plants.
Do not put watermelons in an environment that is consistently below 60 degrees F if you are using a hydroponic system!
Without warmth and sunlight, these plants will not do well and you are wasting a lot of space for little or no reward.
Don’t forget that it matters if the water temperature is also not warm enough to support them; be sure that water remains at, or around, 70 degrees F if the watermelons are going to thrive.
pH Values
It’s also key to consider the pH of the water as well, and to shoot for a pH value between 6.0 and 6.8.
This will be optimal for keeping your watermelon happy and allows for nutrient absorption from the water.
If the pH value is higher or lower than that range, the watermelon plant will struggle in absorbing and be deficient in nutrients, even though they are in the water.
Conclusion
By now, you should hopefully understand how to grow watermelon hydroponics.
If you do this right, you will have the best chance of enjoying some amazing fruit.
Do your research! Watermelons take up space and require a lot of light – you don’t want to invest the time and space into a crop that may not produce fruit!
Make a list of all the factors you need to remember to consider, and check you address these the next few days.
Check the nutrient levels in the water frequently to be sure you have the right ratios.