Watermelons:Charleston,Crimson

[Chick-N-Picker]

Hello I am going to be planting Charleston Grays and probably Crimson Sweet watermelons. I am wanting about 700-1000 melons total.

So I have a few questions/points:
1. I was going to plant them in little cups to get an early start on them then transfer them to the ground around the end of April first of May.
2. I do have irrigation.
3. How many melons do each plant make respectively to each variety?

Any tips or advice?

EDIT: I live in southern Cleveland county, North Carolina.

 

[Becky]

Wow, that's a lot of melons! Welcome to the forum

 

[majorcatfish]

never grown Charleston grays before, but a crimson sweet vine can produce about 5-7 melons..you can probably get more <if> you have a ton of bees and other pollinators.
only 1 in 7 flowers are female the rest are male.....

plus you have to keep any eye out for the stripped cucumber beetle...that will be your biggest pest......

if you figure 500 crimson sweet melons you will need to start and plant 100 seedlings....
good for the gold......

 

[majorcatfish]

"go for the gold" sorry

 

[MsLucy]

My biggest problem with growing both Charleston Grays & Crimson Sweet was I couldn't keep the deer from kicking them open after they ripened. In my experience, you may want to go ahead and plant the sweets in the ground from the beginning. They grow very rapidly depending on how much u water them, and how much direct sunlight they get. If spaced & taken care of properly one vine can yield about 6 - 13 melons. The greys need more attention then the sweets. I usually end up losing a lot of greys to pests, & being burned up by the sun.

 

[Chick-N-Picker]

Thank you all. I just remembered to check back. I planted 786 cups of watermelons. 1-3 seeds per cup. Mostly charleston greys.

I will be transferring them to the ground within a few days.

I planted 1-3 seeds per cup. I know for the Charleston greys it's 2-5 melons per plant.

Will it be 2-5 melons per cup or each seed since a seed produces a plant. I've been told both ways and I'm a little confused.