You can still start an edible garden in June!

June edible garden in the flower bed

Saturday, June 20, 2026

Some think you can only start an edible garden in the spring.  You can actually start a garden at any time in spring, summer or fall.  If you are deciding to start your garden in the summer, there are a few techniques to use to figure out what to plant and help your plants survive and flourish through the heat and humidity.  Most of the vegetables and herbs we associate with backyard gardening are the ones that love summer weather. 

Step 1-I think the best way is to make a list of what you like to eat, then see which of your favorites are best to start right now in your garden!  This is the time of year of the heat lovers like eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and many herbs.  There is no time like the present to get moving on your gardening dreams.  A summer edible garden  Culinary herb garden for beginners 

Summer garden veggies

Step 2-Now that you have your list, take a look at your garden, patio, deck, porch, front yard to see how much space you have that gets 6 hours of sun a day.  Even the summer lovers appreciate afternoon shade this time of year.  There are so many dwarf varieties of every kind of vegetable to grow in pots or small spaces that you should not be put off thinking you don’t have enough space!

Get the most from your space-plant intensively!  
How to decide what to plant for small spaces? 
Companion planting tips    Edible shade gardens shine in summer

Step 3-Buy your gardening supplies for your garden bed or pots.  Pots are easy-just buy some organic potting soil and the decorative pot.  Most potting soils come with fertilizer already mixed in.   You do not want to use garden soil as it is too dense for pots.  Make sure you buy the right size pot for the vegetable you are growing.  If planting in the garden bed, use your flower beds to tuck veggies and herbs around your flowers.  Mulched beds help keep the soil temperature cooler and hold in moisture; just what plants need in summer.

Make your own all natural, complete fertilizer  Re-energize your potting soil!
Decorative container gardening for edibles  Weed free, self fertilizing, till free garden beds  

Step 4-Buy your plants.  I prefer to buy plants that are raised without chemicals so I look for an organic nursery to see if they have what I want.  The brand carried at many big box stores started carrying organic last year.  My next stop is my local nursery or big box hardware store.  Choose the plants that are green and look sturdy.  If they already have blooms, be sure to remove them.  You want all the energy of your plants going into good roots initially.  Plants will be ready to go directly into the garden or pot.  

The heat lovers like tomatoes, beans, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, and melons will also sprout from seed easily this time of year.  They sprout in just a few days.  I transplant sprouts into larger pots to give them room to grow sturdy.  I'll transplant them into the garden when they are around 5" tall.  Or just sow the seeds in their final spot and keep the soil moist.
What to plant in the June edible garden

Newly started seeds

Step 5-Plant!  Water each plant well before planting.  The best time to plant is before a rain or cloudy days.  Gives the plants a little time to get their roots jump started.  I add plant starter and fertilizer to each hole, mix with the soil and then place the plant.  Water again after planting.

For potted veggie or herbs, fill the pot with organic potting soil, water to get the potting soil settled, plant the veggie, and water again.  You can top with mulch to keep lengthen the time between waterings.  I also plant flowers in my pots to add color and attract beneficial insects.

Decorative container gardening for edibles

If planting in your flower bed or garden, the best thing to do is a soil test (you can buy a kit or take it to your local co-op extension office).  If this just seems too much trouble, use an organic balanced fertilizer following the directions on the bag. 

The next step in garden production and your nutrition-soil minerals

I like to put a handful of worm castings and char into each hole with the new plant along with a balanced organic fertilizer like Espoma.  Worm castings have lots of beneficial microbes in them that helps the plants absorb nutrients from the soil.  Compost is also a good option.

Newly planted pepper plant started from seed

Step 6-Monitor and water.  Keep an eye on your plants.  They may look sad the first week if it is really hot when they first go into the ground.  Consistent water is the key for success.  Like a lawn or flowers, the best time to water is in the mornings.  When you water your flowers, water your veggies and herbs.

One watch out on watering, many summer crops are susceptible to leaf fungus, like cucumbers, zucchini, squash, and tomatoes.  Be sure to water at the base of the plant and not the leaves.

Tips for the summer edible garden

Here are a couple of garden ideas:

If you have a picky eater, try the kid’s pizza/spaghetti garden.  If they grow it, they want to eat it!

Tomatoes-any you can’t eat, you can easily freeze for winter pizzas

Basil, oregano, chives, garlic for seasoning

Onions-you can grow Egyptian walking onions in a pot or ground and they are perennials to boot

Kale, arugula, and sprouting broccoli for a little green in your pizza toppings (easy to freeze for later)

Green peppers, eggplant, zucchini for summer pizzas (maybe some hot peppers for the adults)

For those that are real adventuresome, you can get mushroom kits to grow mushrooms.

Pizza garden for the kids

Here is an Italian/Sicilian garden that you can grow in as little as a 6’ x 6’ space or pots:

Herbs (1 each)-thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano, and flat leaf parsley

3 basil plants (for pesto and seasoning)

2 tomatoes-1 Roma type for sauces and 1 slicer type for salads

2 sweet pepper plants

1 zucchini

1 eggplant

8 red onions (you can substitute Egyptian walking onions for a summer garden)

8 garlic plants (planted in the fall for summer harvest)

Arugula, spinach and lettuce scatter sown

Heirloom Sicilian kitchen garden

It is great fun, a time saver, and nutritious to grow your own food in your yard!

Growing beans 101

Marigold on left, squash on right with bean vines on trellis behind

Sunday, June 14, 2026

Beans have been cultivated for thousands of years all around the world.  Fava type beans hail from the Old World while the types used for dry and green beans are from the New World.  Pole beans were part of the Three Sisters of Native Americans along with squash and corn.  Not only do they taste great, but they add nitrogen to the soil and are easy to "put away" for winter eating.  

Beans are some of the easiest and most productive vegetable to grow in the garden.  They have little to no pests or diseases, and require little care.  With a trellis or pole, you can get a lot of beans from very little space in the garden with pole beans.  Pole beans can also be grown on a trellis in a pot.  Yard long beans need a very long trellis as they can grow 20'.

Beans love sun, well drained soil, and a side dressing of fertilizer or compost when planted.  Don't get carried away with fertilizer during the growing season or you will have all greenery and no pods.  Be sure to not water the foliage; stick with watering at the ground to avoid fusarium wilt.

Beans are part of the legumes which include fava beans, shell beans (like the popular red, kidney, Great Northern beans), green beans, lima beans, peanuts, lentils, and soybeans.  Legumes have some of the highest protein in the plant world.  When combined with grains, you get a complete protein like you do from meat or eggs.

When you plant beans, be sure to use a rhizobial bacteria inoculant.  You just moisten the seed and coat with the rhizobial powder and plant.  Nitrogen accumulates on the roots of the legume.  Just be sure to not pull the plant when you are done harvesting from it so that the nitrogen stays in the soil!

Beans are summer crops and there are many bush and pole varieties.  Bush varieties come into bear just before pole types and usually have one major flush of beans.  Pole beans produce continuously all summer to frost.  Both require soil temps of at least 60 degrees F.  Start after all danger of frost has passed. Plant 1” deep and as close as 4” apart for pole types and 12” apart for bush types.  Seedlings emerge in 7-14 days.

Fertilize at the time of planting with a balanced fertilizer and then when beans appear.  If growing pole beans continue fertilizing monthly as pole beans produce until the frost gets them in late fall.  

I planted my seeds in peat pots and transplanted into the garden a couple of weeks ago and my 1500 Year Old Cave Bean and Christmas Speckles are about 6' long.  My yard long beans are only about a foot long.  It has been cooler than normal this May which is putting many of the summer lovers behind their normal schedule.  It is now in the upper 80's and 90's so they should really move.

Trellis on right completely covered in pole beans

The pole vining types typically grow to 8 foot long and some as long as 15 feet so a trellis is needed.  If you don't have a trellis that tall, just snip the vine when it gets to the top of the trellis or just let them fall over.  They will do just fine that way, just makes it a treasure hunt to find the beans!  I think the most efficient trellis design is one that you can tilt at an angle.  Then the weight of the beans will cause them to hang down, making them a breeze to pick.  If you have the room for this design (you can use one that you can lean against a building), just be sure that it is situated so the vine greenery gets maximum sun.

I grow ours on a 5 foot trellis in the garden bed or large pot.  If growing in a pot, pinch the tops off when the reach the top of the trellis. 

Since beans are growing during the hotter time of year, watering is important to keep them productive.  Just be sure to not water the foliage; they can get fungal diseases.  Vining type beans produce over a long period of time, right up until frost.  To keep them making beans, be sure to harvest frequently. 

Runner bean pods are edible and produce beautiful flowers in red, white or peach.  Some are even perennial in Zone 6 and higher.  If you harvest just when the bean seeds begin to swell, you can eat as snap beans.  If you wait, you can dry and eat the bean seeds like any dried bean.

I prefer to grow the “stringless” types so I don’t have to remove the string when I put them up.  Most varieties grown today are stringless if harvested on time.  It takes much longer and you get less per plant if you let the pods dry on the vine for dried beans.  I have started growing yard long beans for my snap beans because they are so productive and stringless.  Chinese Red Noodle has done great for me.  I am trying 2 additional types this year, Taiwan Black and Yancheng.

I freeze my extra green beans.  By freezing, I can harvest every other day and just add the new ones to the freezer bag.  Freezing the extras for winter   If you decide you want to can beans, you'll need a pressure canner as green beans are low acid veggies.  You can pickle beans with just a big pot.  Easy, low tox canning of summer's bounty  If you are growing storage beans, just be sure they have dried thoroughly before storing in something like a Mason jar so they don't mold.

Purple podded bean

You get the most beans from those that you eat the whole bean versus shelling type beans.  So, if space is limited, "green bean" types are the best.  I tried storage beans in the past and got one quart out of 10 plants.  I got many, many quarts of beans from the vines I picked for freezing as green beans from half the number of vines.

For watering, the rule of thumb I use is that the garden should get a deep watering once a week.  If we haven't gotten a nice drenching rain in more than a week, then I water.  We have a drip hose that runs throughout the garden bed that is covered by mulch.  This keeps the moisture going into the ground instead of evaporating.  Summer Edible Gardening Tips

What's happening in the mid June garden

Zinnias, basil and tomatoes planted in garden bed

Saturday, June 13, 2026

 

Most of my summer edibles have gotten off to a good start this year. All of the pepper and tomato plants are flowering and most have baby fruits.  The large tomato that we bought from a local greenhouse two months ago has several ripe fruits.  The bean, okra, eggplant and cucumber plants are growing.

  

My garden is planted.  Tasks now are fertilizing, watering, pest and weed control.  There are a few seeds that didn't sprout that have been resown.  Soon enjoying the lush growth and harvesting of the summer veggies will be the biggest "task" in the garden.

This last week, I fertilized all my plants.  It is good to fertilize when your edibles start flowering.  My peppers, tomatoes, blackberries, raspberries, huckleberries and tamarillo were flowering and fruiting.  To keep it simple, I just did them all.  Fertilize about monthly in the growing season.  Water when you are getting less than inch of rain during the week.  Pots need 2-3" per week.

Summer Edible Gardening Tips

Squash-Both the summer and winter squash seeds were sown in peat pots and transplanted in the garden.  They are all green and growing.   Growing squash 101

Melons-I started both my melon varieties, Kajari and Prescott Fond Blanc,  in peat pots and have transplanted them to the garden.  Melons like it when it's hot so if you sow seeds and it stays cool, they can rot before they sprout.  Growing melons 101

Eggplant-I started them all from seed this year.  I moved them to their large pot summer home about a month ago.  I have Rotanda Bianca, AO Daimaru, and Shiromaru transplanted.  The AO Daimaru is quite large but no flowers yet.  Should be soon!  Growing eggplant 101

Beans-I started vining types from seed in peat pots and transplanted last month into the garden.  I have Christmas Speckles lima, 1500 Year Old Cave bean, and 3 varieties of yard long beans.   All you need know to grow green (or purple or yellow) beans

Cucumber-I am growing all vining cucumber in the ground this year on trellises-Aonaga Jibai, White Heron, Shintokiwa and Poinsett 76.  All are disease resistant. Growing cucumbers 101   

Tomatoes-I planted all my tomatoes in a new bed my husband put in, except for a large Better Boy we bought at a local greenhouse in April which is in a large pot.  The Better Boy has ripe tomatoes for the last 3 weeks.  I just picked 2 Chocolate Pear tomatoes today.  The rest all are flowering and have baby tomatoes-Italian Red Pear paste, Cherokee Purple, 3 different Brandywines OTV, Pink and Purple, Long Keeper storage tomato and 2 disease resistant varieties Tropic VFN and Mannon Majesty.  Tomatoes 101, How to Grow Great Tomatoes

Snow peas-I only had 1 vine germinate.  I did get several pods but they are winding down.  They love cool temperatures and lots of moisture.  When heat moves in, they give it up.  Legumes-peas for spring, beans for summer

Greens-All the chard, spinach, mustards, sprouting broccoli and lettuce that overwintered and those planted in March has bolted.  I found some volunteer lettuces and sprouting broccoli in the yard that I dug and transplanted into the garden bed.  I should sow some more lettuce seed.  In warm weather, harvest first thing in the morning or after a rain for best tasting, juiciest leaves.  Put in a bowl of water to plump up the leaves. 

The amaranth and orach volunteers have sprouted.  They will remain sweet all summer long.  There are volunteer sprouting broccoli in a range of sizes.  They will stay sweet all summer, too.  Volunteer Red Malabar and New Zealand spinach love the hot temperatures and are growing quickly.  Their leaves can be harvested all summer long as spinach substitutes.  Carefree summer salad greens

Herbs-The herbs are growing well-dill, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, horseradish, onions, and basil.  Dill, Egyptian walking onions, sage and thyme have put on flower heads.  All do well right to winter except for basil; it dies as soon as the first frost comes.  Most winters in our Zone 7 garden, the sage, thyme, oregano, onions can be harvested throughout the winter.  I am growing papalo to use as a cilantro substitute.  It loves warm weather and is doing great!  Start a kitchen herb garden!

Fruits-We got a few quarts of strawberries last month.  They are ever bloomers so should get fruits throughout the summer.  All my potted blueberry bushes had some berries.  Blackberries are producing right now.  Have gotten about 3 quarts so far off our 2 bushes.  One raspberry bush has had a few fruits.  The red goji berry bush is loaded with green fruits and I have gotten many red berries.  It will produce until fall.  I have a few potted huckleberry plants and they all have ripe berries.  This is my first year trying them so not sure how long their season will be.  Husk cherry has several green fruits on them.  They will also produce until frost.  The dwarf tamarillo is blooming.  It doesn't produce a lot in its pot.  It would be more productive in the ground but I bring it indoors for the winter so I just keep it in a pot for convenience.

Flowers-Celosia, daylilies, hydrangeas, petunias, spiderworts, blue morning glory, Sweet William, purple and Amadeo echinacea, lavender, lantana, jasmine, mums and zinnias are all blooming in my garden.  Many carrots have bolted, creating tall white flowers that look like Queen Ann's Lace.  Pollinators just love the small flowers on herbs and carrot flowers.  Bee balm, blunt mountain mint, sunflowers, glads, Jerusalem artichokes, basil and oregano flowers should be coming soon.

My pollinator bed has filled in nicely.  It took 4 years to get it full.  It gets a good deal of shade so natives don't grow as quickly as they would if it was a full sun location.  Most of the flowers I started from a pollinator mix.  I'd sow a few seeds in a pot and when they got big, I'd transplant them.  I'd get in 1-2 sowings sowings each summer.  Since the seeds were free, it only cost me time and patience.

Summer Edible Gardening Tips

Zinnias and basil in June garden

Monday, June 8, 2026

The summer loving edibles from the tropics love summer time.   Eggplant, cucumber and squash plants seem to grow inches every day in hot, humid weather!  The crops from temperate regions like peppers, tomatoes, beans, peppers and Mediterranean herbs are also growing quite well.  The humidity brings higher risk of disease and the lack of rain during peak summer heat can put a damper on garden production.  

 

To keep your plants thriving and your harvests at their peak, here are a few tips for summer edibles:

 

1.     Harvest frequently!  Plants are in the business of reproducing.  Their entire life is dedicated to giving the best possible chance of maintaining more plants for the future.  The more you harvest, the more babies the plant will produce.  I have noticed that my cucumber plant can only support one large cucumber on each vine.  As soon as I pick the big one, you can see one of the small ones jump in size by the very next day!  Harvest in the morning for peak juiciness of fruits and in the afternoon for peak concentration of flavor in summer loving herbs.

 

2.     Mulch your beds. The mulch keeps the moisture from evaporating, allowing more infrequent watering.  It also moderates the temperature of the soil so it doesn’t get baking hot.  I use natural wood mulch in both my garden beds and pots.   

 

3.     Water consistently.  The cause of cracked fruits is inconsistent water.   The plant gets used to very little water and when deluged the fruit’s skin can’t expand fast enough and the fruit cracks.  Inconsistent watering can also cause blossom end rot.  Over watering can be a problem, too.  Too much water will cause your fruits to be tasteless and mushy.  If in the ground, your plants need either a good soaking rain each week or a deep watering (1" total per week).  I use soaker hoses in my mulched garden beds.  It is best to water in the morning; you get maximum absorption (biggest bang for your water buck).  For pots, you will likely need to water 3 times per week during the height of summer heat.  I like pots with a water reservoir built in the bottom so I don’t have to water them as often.  

 

4.     Do not water the foliage of your nightshade plants (tomatoes, potatoes, squash, watermelon, and cucumbers)!  They are very susceptible to fungal diseases and water on their leaves encourages fungal growth.  It is recommended to spray every 7-14 days for natural fungicides on all nightshade plants when the risk for fungal disease starts.  In our Zone 7 garden, late May is not too early to start preventative spraying if you are growing varieties that are susceptible.  Natural fungicides include Copper, Serenade and Southern Ag.

 

5.     Fertilize monthly with side dressing of compost or slow-release fertilizer.  Fertilizer should be covered with soil to keep the nitrogen from off gassing.  It is also a good idea to add minerals to the soil annually.  You can purchase minerals just for gardening.  I like to rotate between Azomite and kelp meal.  If your plants have more minerals, their fruits will too!  

 

6.     Pick insects off daily.  Keep a close eye on your plants to you can stop an infestation before it gets started.  If I do get a really bad infestation, I will use diacotomus earth (DE) or insecticidal soap.  It is organic and not a chemical.  Some people even eat DE!  DE works by scratching the exoskeleton of the insects which leads to dehydration and death.  Be careful, though, as it will kill good bugs too.  I use it very sparingly and only if desperate.  A few bugs don’t eat much :  )  Another option is the use of light covers to keep the bugs from your plants.  

 

7.     Keep any diseased leaves groomed from your plants and do not compost them.  Diseases can be killed if your compost pile is hot enough but if not at high enough temperature and duration, disease will survive composting.  I haven’t progressed far enough yet in my composting skills to trust I am getting the pile hot enough and I don’t want to spread diseases to all my plants.  I put any diseased leaves and plants in the trash.

 

8.     Compost.  For all the trimmings from the garden and the kitchen, start a compost pile or get an indoor composter.  I have used both.  I had an indoor Naturemill electric composter in the garage and an outdoor tumbler for all the kitchen scraps.  Right now, I am using the outdoor insulated stainless tumbler.  

 

9.     Succession plant.  Summer veggies can get tired by the end of the season or overcome with disease.  A strategy to make sure you have an abundant harvest all the way through fall is to plant a second round of the heavy producers like summer squash, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  End of June is a great time to get a second round of summer lovers going.   

 

10.  Provide shade.  If you live an area with scorching heat and sun, even the summer lovers would benefit from some afternoon shade.  Tomato and pepper fruits can get sunburned, called sun scald.  Many eggplant varieties can get thick skins and a more bitter taste in intense heat and sun.  Even in our Zone 7 garden, I have experienced all these.  You can move potted plants or plant on the southeast side to get your veggies some afternoon shade.  I did try shade cloth one year for my lettuce, but the plants did not seem to thrive in our Zone 7 garden under shade cloth cover.  I plant all my eggplant and pepper plants in pots that get afternoon shade.

What to plant in the June edible garden

Potted eggplant with petunia
Sunday, June 7, 2026

In our Zone 7 garden, June is usually summer with highs consistently in the 80's.  The cold crops planted in April like lettuce, mustard, kale and spinach have bolted (gone to seed).  The tomato transplants are blooming and almost all of them have baby tomatoes growing.  We have had a cool, cloudy and rainier May than normal and a warmer April.  Bee swarms were 17 days earlier than normal.  Now is prime time to plant the tropical edibles.  No worries, these heat lovers will grow quickly in the summer sun.

I started all my large seed summer lovers in peat pots this spring.   Since pots will be warmer than the garden soil, this helps keep the seeds warmer.  I have transplanted them all into pots or the garden beds.

My peppers and eggplants that I transplanted last month, some of the peppers have baby peppers and some are still quite small.  None of the eggplants are flowering yet.  Eggplants are native to India so they really like the hot, humid weather so they should jump up next week when it is supposed to get to the 90's.  Think the peppers just need more sun and less cloudy weather.

I should resow some lettuce seed.  I did find volunteers in the lawn that I transplanted into the garden bed a couple of weeks ago.  They are big enough now to harvest off of but they will bolt quickly with the warmer temperatures.  This time of year it is best o sow lettuce seeds every 2-3 weeks to keep yourself in sweet lettuce leaves if you enjoy salads during the summer.  Go for the bolt resistant types in late spring and early summer.  Bolt-free, sweet summer lettuces 

Below is a list of plants and seeds you can put in the June edible garden.  Transplants give you a jump on harvests and are still available at big box stores and nurseries, but seeds are inexpensive and you can get unusual varieties to try that you can't get as transplants.

 

June-transplants or seeds

Basil

Bee balm (monarda)

Beans-bush and pole

Beets

Borage

Broccoli

Catnip

Celery

Cucumber

Eggplant

Horseradish

Lavender

Lemon balm

Lettuce (heat tolerant)

Lovage
Mustard
Onions
Parsley
Parsnips

Peppers

Pumpkins

Radicchio

Radishes

Rosemary

Sage

Strawberries

Summer and winter squash

Tarragon

Thyme

Tomatoes

Turnips

Valerian

June-start from seeds directly in the garden

Beans (snap-bush & pole)

Beets

Carrots

Corn

Cucumber

Melons
Peas, Southern

Radishes

Squash

Turnips

For lettuce substitute, I am growing sprouting broccoli and a sweet Chinese cabbage, Hilton, along with orach, multi colored amaranth, cultivated dandelion greens, arugula and chard.  All can be sown now.

For spinach substitute, I am growing Perpetual Spinach, Red Malabar spinach, Japanese Mountain Spinach chard, and New Zealand spinach.  They all thrive in hot weather.  Malabar spinach is a vine so give it a trellis to climb.  It is quite pretty with its maroon stems and flowers.

Give your greens the coolest spot in the garden and moisture to keep them sweet and succulent.  You can use taller plants to give them shade as well.  Growing summer salads

For tips on starting your seeds in the garden:  Outdoor seed starting tips  I also like to put a pot or two on our covered deck and start seeds there.  Once they are to a good size, transplant them into their permanent pot or into the garden bed.  Be sure your seedlings are hardened off as the heat and sun can be intense this time of year. "Hardening off" seedlings   I like to plant on a cloudy day when rain is being called for the next day.

In June, the days are getting hot and the rains usually don't come as often.  Be sure to water your new plants when it gets dry or they start to wilt.  Summer garden tips

Growing melons 101

Burpee "Bush Sugar Baby" watermelon

Saturday, June 6, 2026

Watermelons and cantaloupes are tropical fruits.  Watermelons likely originated in the southern African Kalahari Desert.  Watermelons were being cultivated in Egypt by 2000 BCE and wild seeds were found at an archeological site in Libya that were 5000 years old.  Egyptian depictions of melons(cantaloupes) date to 3000 years ago.  Wild melons are found in Africa, Asia, and Australia.  Watermelons came to the New World by Spanish and Portugese sailors at an early date.  They were used abundantly by Native Americans by the time colonists arrived.   

Watermelons, muskmelons and cantaloupes prefer the same growing conditions-the warmth and sun of summer.  They were a rarity in England, but grow well in the sunnier parts of Europe and flourished in the New World.

Both watermelons and cantaloupes prefer days in the 80's and 90's with lows in the 60's and 70's, full sun, a soil pH of 6-6.8, and fertile, well drained soil.  Melons are like Goldilocks, they don't like the soil too wet or too dry.  Too wet and they can rot or not be flavorful, too dry and their growth will be stunted. 

For cantaloupes, you can start seed indoors 6-8 weeks before the last frost, buy transplants or start directly in the garden.  For planting directly in the garden, plant seeds in late spring/early summer when soil temperature has reached 65 degrees F on hills, 4-5' apart.   

For watermelons, you can sow indoors 3-4 weeks before the last frost, sow seeds directly in the garden when all danger of frost has passed or buy transplants.  Watermelons like a light soil so if you have heavy clay, amend soil with organic material to loosen and make hills 4-6" high.  Harvest after first tendril nearest the fruit turns brown and the underside of the melon turns from light green to a butter yellow.  Some can tell by thumping on the melon if it is ripe.  A hollow sound means it is ready to pick and eat!  Watermelon seed is viable for 6 years.  

Melons will cross with one another so if you want to keep pure seed, either plant only one variety or separate varieties by a half mile.

I have grown compact watermelons that can even be grown in a pot!  It is called "Bush Sugar Baby".  Being a bush type, it will stay compact and not have a vine that runs long.  It gets up to 2' tall and 2-3' wide and is ready to harvest in 80 days.  Each plant bears 2, 12 pound melons.  In my garden, a fun little melon called Tigger grows very well.  

Melons love the hot weather so I wait until it is summer like before starting seed or transplanting.  Melons prefer soil temperatures of 70-95F.  If you want to sow directly in the garden, now would be a good time in our area.  I started my melons outdoors in a peat pot about a month ago.  We have gotten so much rain I couldn't get into the garden spot where they go until a few days ago.  I had to put out straw and wear rain boots to get them planted!  They should do well now as our temperatures are pretty consistently in the 80's now.