We find out what goes into growing and distributing watermelons | Discovery | Gardening Australia

Costa visits multi-generational watermelon farmers to find out all there is to know about growing great melons. Subscribe 🔔 http://ab.co/GA-subscribe
Chinchilla is a rural town four hours north of Brisbane and it’s well known as the home of watermelon culture. During times of drought in the 1990’s an annual festival was initiated by the struggling melon farmers who wanted to revitalize community spirit. Costa meets one of the founders of the festival.

Daryl O’Leary has grown a few watermelons in his day. He started growing melons at age 12 and established this farm in 1986, now boasting a grand 52 years of melon mastery. Handling most of the operation nowadays is his son, Terry O’leary and his wife Aja. Terry is no lightweight either with 18 years in the melon business. He says that despite Aja moving here only a few years ago, “she’s picked up absolutely everything and knows just as much as me these days.” The family tradition continues with their daughters learning farm skills such as packing and weighing at the same ages as Terry and Daryl.

This landscape receives around 700mm of rainfall per year with many farmers growing melons on rainfall alone, known as “dryland growing”. Terry says, “melons are a desert plant, people often forget that. They do like free-draining soil, they love heat, they just need a good drink of rain every now and then.” Across acres and acres of flat green vines, they’re currently picking fruit from over 14000 plants. Over the course of the year will harvest from a total of around 100,000. While they have access to great machines, it’s all run by people. “No robots yet” says Terry. They have four pickers in the field who follow the machinery as they harvest the melons. The fruit travels up an escalator to three quality checkers who pack them into boxes, and finally driven away by tractor drivers for further checks.

The O’Leary’s grow seedless watermelons. Terry says, “the best way to describe the seedless watermelon is that it’s a mule”, a sterile hybrid of two types of watermelon seed. “We still need to have some seeded watermelons in there” to pollinate the next generation, says Terry, with Daryl adding, “if you grow a good seedless; it’s crisp and red, they can be sweeter than any seeded one.”

The main cultivar on this farm includes the classic green-stripe with origins in the North Americas, now in a seedless edition. Generally, the timeline from seed to harvest is around nine to twelve weeks, however, “It depends on the time of the year” says Terry. Summer plantings are quicker to mature than earlier plantings, and Terry says, “mid-30°C is the perfect daytime temperature for watermelons.”

For tips on growing great watermelons at home, Terry says “make sure you’ve got plenty of space and some really good free-draining soil.” Daryl adds that while soil types can differ, make sure you “don’t overwater them. Make them work hard early to get a big root system, and they won’t need as much water later on.” To check if it is ripe, Daryl’s technique is to tap it with an open hand and listen for a high-pitched sound. With 52 years in the industry, Daryl says, “you’re never off your L-plates in this game” but they reckon everyone should have a crack at growing their own watermelons at home.

Featured Plants:
WATERMELON – Citrullus lanatus cv.
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