Last edited on 2 Nov 2026. View history
Souter's Watermelon
A variety of watermelon
How to sow Souter's watermelon: Direct seed into soil or peat pots (and transplant pots directly into soil after hardening off)
Sun requirement for Souter's watermelon: Plant in Full Sun
A round watermelon with light green skin that pales when ripe, light red flesh and very black seeds. Excellent flavour, and best picked and stored for up to three months; it was traditionally stored in pits in the ground. Gifted by Michael Lawn of Havelock North and said to come from a Māori family near Taneatua, possibly the Souters of Tokomaru Bay.
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Souter's watermelon facts
Lifespan
Crop cycle
Max altitude
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For Souter's watermelon, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 9°C and a shortest growing cycle of 50 days at its best temperature, about 750 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your Souter's watermelon will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
Growing Souter's watermelons
- Sow seeds in pots 4 weeks before planting out
- Dig compost into the bed 2 weeks before planting out
- Harden off the seedlings 1 week before planting out
- Set or refill beer traps for slugs and snails at planting out every week
- Water deeply at the base 1 week after planting out every week
- Mulch around the plants 3 weeks after planting out
- Hand pollinate the female flowers 6 weeks after planting out
- Lift fruit onto a tile or board 4 weeks before first harvest
- Cut back on watering as fruit ripens 2 weeks before first harvest
- Pick when the tendril by the fruit dries at first harvest every week
- Pull out finished plants 6 weeks after first harvest
Plant Souter's watermelons with
morning glory
Video
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Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsumura & Nakai
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Dilleniidae Violales Cucurbitaceae |
|---|---|
| Life form | herb, vine |
| Life span | annual |
| Habit | prostrate/procumbent/semi-erect |
| Optimal soil depth | deep (>>150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | medium |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | long day (>14 hours) |
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