Watermelon Grafting and Trellising for Tight Spaces

Watermelon Grafting and Trellising for Tight Spaces

Grafting isn’t just for fruit trees – you can graft watermelons too!

With just 12 square feet of full-sun garden space, you can grow a dozen or more watermelons. Many Wisconsin gardeners think that watermelons aren’t suited for our climate, but in fact, nearly every variety of watermelon—be it an heirloom or a modern hybrid—can thrive in Southern Wisconsin. The most reliable and least plastic-intensive method to achieve grotesquely large yields is grafting, which drastically improves watermelon vigor, cold tolerance, and disease resistance. If you have been dying to have fresh homegrown watermelon, join us for this workshop!

In this two-hour workshop, participants will practice grafting watermelons, and will leave with 2 grafted watermelon plants ready to go in the ground. The workshop will also cover all other cultural considerations, and will explain how to implement trellis systems in order to grow watermelons in small spaces and protect them from predation. This class is full of all the information you need to grow delicious watermelons in your own garden, whether you are a novice, intermediate, or expert gardener.

We will supply all the supplies and tools required for the workshop. Trellising supplies are not included, but may be available for an additional fee.

Topics covered:

• Basics of watermelon growing and harvesting (bed prep, weed prevention, irrigation, soil types, compost needs)
• Watermelon grafting for high yields
• Trellising your watermelons (tools, skills required, materials needed)
• Demystifying watermelon varieties
• History of watermelon cultivation, from its ancient origins in north-east Africa, to advances in tetraploid production

Topics not covered:

• Square watermelon production

Workshop attendees will receive:

• Two grafted watermelons ready to plant
• Written information about watermelon cultivation

Participants will be able to choose from a variety of watermelon seedlings to take home, representing Japanese, Turkish, Russian, and American cultivars.

About the instructor:

Aaron Suiter runs the Plant Propagation Project (plantpropagationproject.org and substack.com/@aaronsuiter), where he tests and shares germination protocols for less-commonly-cultivated native plants. He earned an MS in Environment & Resources from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2021, and was credentialed as an ISA certified arborist in 2018. He began his journey into restorative agriculture and restoration ecology at the age of 10 when he sold vegetables at his local farmer’s market for Stella Gardens, part of the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute. He also founded Carleton College’s mycological society, and served as the special projects coordinator for Carleton’s student-run organic farm. When he’s not running germination experiments, he provides remote sensing and environmental GIS consulting services through Wisconsin Ecological Insights LLC.