Watermelon is not only a great taste and aroma, but also a berry that has many useful properties for the body. For example, it contains fructose, digestive pectin, magnesium, calcium, iron salts, fiber and B vitamins. This summer gift helps with anemia, swelling, kidney and stone diseases, and is also used as a restorative after surgery under anesthesia. . Few people know that, in addition to pulp, seeds are useful in watermelon. They, along with pumpkin, are an anthelmintic and contain a large amount of vitamin D. In rural areas, with headaches and migraines, thick watermelon peels are tied to the head instead of tablets.
Volgograd, Astrakhan regions, Kalmykia, Uzbekistan - these are the regions where watermelon grows. The cultivation of this culture in the Urals is associated with certain difficulties, due primarily to climatic conditions. This berry is very thermophilic: for germination it requires at least 17 ° C, and for optimal growth - more than 25 ° C during the day and from 18 ° C at night. Watermelons, the cultivation of which in the Urals is often hampered by high humidity, require fairly dry air (60-70%). Excessive “water” leads to fungal diseases, death of the plant or a significant deterioration in the quality of the fetus.
What needs to be done to get a delicious watermelon in your garden? Growing in the Urals and in the middle zone of Russia requires a very careful approach to the selection of seed. Experts recommend the varieties "Sugar Baby", "Skorik" or "Spark", which ripen in 60-70 days, which just corresponds to the warm season. The F1 group is also suitable (Krimstar, Charleston, Moscow Region, etc.). But these plants do not give good seeds for the next year. When choosing a variety, you need to look at the number of days from the fruit ovary to readiness. It depends on whether the watermelon ripening in the Urals is limited to the warm days of a short summer. You can also pay attention to the shape of the fruit, large-fruited, transportability, if you are going to grow products for sale. Seed bags should be taken only in special stores, as in markets, they may be frozen due to improper storage.
So, we want to get watermelons in the Urals. Cultivation begins with washing the seed in a solution of potassium permanganate slightly pink. This achieves the disinfection and rejection of floating specimens. This is followed by heating the seeds at the battery (temperature should not exceed 50 ° C), which must be started about a week before the intended sowing. Sowing itself is usually done in mid or late April.
Seeds can be planted in milk bags to a depth of about 3 cm, after spilling the ground with a hot solution of potassium permanganate. The bag is closed with polyethylene and placed on the sunny side of the window. The optimum temperature for seedlings is about 27 ° C, with it the seedlings will be ready in a month (has 3-5 leaves).
If you do not want the weather to ruin your watermelon, you need to start growing this plant in the Urals under a film, planting seedlings in the 15-20th of May. The distance between the shoots should be about half a meter, about a kilogram of compost is introduced into each hole and a spill is made with warm water. The seedling lump should rise slightly above the ridge (a couple of centimeters) so that the plant does not rot. The film from the ridges is removed in the middle-end of June, when the watermelon blooms. After the formation of 2-3 fruits, the remaining ovaries are cut off, extra branches are removed so that the remaining watermelons receive more light. The ripeness of the fruit is determined not by size, but by a clear pattern that appears, a decrease in wax coating, a dull sound when tapped. The ability to distinguish a mature fruit from an unripe one comes only with experience. And experience makes it possible to grow some exotic varieties, such as a watermelon with yellow pulp or a square shape.