EasyBloom Forum

How do you handle dead watermelon vines and weeds that are around healthy watermelon plants?

Hey Alex...well...there's no real easy answer for this. It's going to require some weeding and pruning to remove the dead vines and weeds. I would like to mention that it is a good idea to do this even though there is some labor involved. Dead plant tissue harbors disease causing microorganisms, and watermelons are fairly susceptible to fungal and bacterial infection. By removing the "vectors", you can stimy the life cycle of some of these diseases. Your chances of having a once healthy watermelon quickly degrading to a diseased watermelon will go down by removing dead vines and weeds.

Now I know that not many people enjoy weeding, and if someone says that they do, they are probably lying. :) Weeding is a tedious job, but it is fairly important. The best way to handle weeds is through constant vigilance. As soon as you see a weed, remove it. Over my career I have traveled to many different nurseries, gardens and other horticultural institutions. Each time I have gone, it has usually been with a mix of people from many different disciplines: business, gardening hobbyist, engineering, and of course horticulture. You can always pick out who in the group of people touring a horticultural facility are horticulturalists because you will see them picking weeds during the tour. It's kind of a mind frame that a horticulturalist adopts, and I think it is based on one simple thing...the sooner the weed is picked, the easier it will be.

There are obviously some tools that can help with weeding. The one tool that I've always thought was great goes by several names, but I have always called it the Scuffle Weeding Hoe. It is like a typical hoe, but the business end of the tool has a 'D' shaped ring that you drag through the topsoil. It's easy to use and can slice through the roots of weeds if need be. When you first use it, it will turn over the topsoil which is generally a good thing. When you overturn that soil, you may also be exposing some long buried seeds from weedy plants to the sun though. Those newly exposed seeds may start to germinate, but it's a easy fix with the weeding tool to hack through the weedy mess. Eventually the "seed bank" (that is the term for all the dormant seeds in the soil) will get smaller and smaller and you will not see many weeds popping up as you did before. I hope this is helpful to you. Let me know if you have any further questions. Happy Gardening!!! Robby