Icebox watermelons, including Sugar Baby, earn their name from their small fruit, which weighs in at 6 to 15 pounds and measures 6 to 10 inches across. Where full-size watermelons need a cool basement, spring house or walk-in cooler for storage, icebox watermelons fit easily into a standard fridge or picnic hamper. This size melon is easy to consumein its entiretyat a picnic or family supper.
GROWING INSTRUCTIONS
If you live in warmer climes, you can direct sow seeds outdoors, but wait until the soil temperature warms to at least 70 degrees to avoid poor germination.
Melon vines are very tender and should not be transplanted until all danger of frost has passed. (To be safe, wait at least two weeks past your last frost date.)
If you are in a cooler zone, start seeds indoors about a month before transplanting.
Amend soil with aged manure or compost before planting. melons are heavy feeders.
Watermelons prefer a soil pH between 6 and 6.8.
Growing the vines in raised rows, known as hills, ensures good drainage and will hold the suns heat longer. Space the plants about 2 feet apart in a 5-foot-wide hill.
If you're growing in rows, space 6 feet apart by 6 feet apart.
Melons like loamy, well-drained soil. Handle them gently when you transplant.
After you transplant, cover the plants with row covers to keep pests at bay. You'll remove the row covers when you see both male and female flowers on the vine.
Care
Mulching with black plastic will serve multiple purposes: it will warm the soil, hinder weed growth and keep developing fruits clean.
While melon plants are growing, blooming, and setting fruit, they need 1 to 2 inches of water per week. Water at the vine's base in the morning, and try to avoid wetting the leaves and avoid overhead watering. Reduce watering once fruit are growing. Dry weather produces the sweetest melon.
Pruning isn't necessary, but vine productivity may be improved if you do not allow lateral (side) vines to grow and stick to the main vine. When the plant is young, just cut off the end buds as they form (before the side shoots become vines). You can also pinch off some blossoms to focus the energy on fewer melons (though it's a challenge to kill off a potential fruit!).
Vines produce male and female flowers separately on the same plant. They often begin producing male flowers several weeks before the females appear. Do not be concerned if the male flowers fall off. The female flowers (which have a swollen bulb at the base) will stay on the vine and bear fruit.
Blossoms require pollination to set fruit, so be kind to the bees!
As fruit is ripening, prevent rotting by gently lifting it and putting some cardboard or straw between the fruit and the soil.
Check the tendril. If it's green, wait. If its half-dead, the melon is nearly ripe or ripe. If the tendril is fully dead, it's ripe or overripe; its not going to get any riper, so you might as well pick!
Stems should be cut with a sharp knife close to the fruit.
