🍉 Jubilee Watermelon

What it looks like

Why this variety

Jubilee is a statement melon: oblong, light green with dark stripes, 20 to 40 pounds, sweet red flesh with a fine texture, and vines that run 10 feet or more like they are training for something. Released in 1963, it became a Deep South favorite because it loves long, hot seasons — which is precisely what Florida offers, and precisely why it underperforms in short-season gardens where it never finishes.

The honest cost of bigness is time and space: Jubilee needs 90 to 95 days of real heat, a big bed, and steady water, and a melon that size is a commitment to carry, cut, and eat before it fades. In return you get the highest cool factor per square foot in the vegetable garden and enough melon for a crowd. Plant it in spring, not fall, in Florida — fall days shorten too fast for a 95-day melon to finish with full sweetness.

If you are new to choosing between cultivars, the Varieties Matter guide explains why the name after the plant matters as much as the plant itself.

How to grow

Watermelons want heat, sun, and room to be dramatic. Start seed indoors 2 to 3 weeks before your last frost date, or direct-sow once the soil is reliably above 70°F — cold soil rots seed before it ever sprouts, and a watermelon seedling chilled early never really forgives you. In Florida, spring planting runs roughly February to March in the north, January to March further south, with a second fall window in August and September. Give each plant a hill or a wide row and space to run: vines routinely stretch 6 to 10 feet, and crowding them is how mildew parties start.

Jubilee’s size also means fruit support matters: set developing melons on straw or a board to keep them off wet soil, which prevents rot spots and gives you a clean ground spot to read at harvest. And invite neighbors to the harvest — a 40-pound melon is a social event whether you plan it or not.

Bees do the pollination, so do not spray insecticide on open flowers in the morning when bees are working. A female flower wears a tiny melon behind the petals; if it yellows and drops, it was not pollinated, and the usual culprit is too few pollinators, not your soil. Black plastic or landscape fabric warms the soil and holds moisture in spring plantings, but in a Florida summer it can cook roots — straw mulch is the safer summer bet.

Water & feeding

Water deeply and consistently, especially while fruit is sizing — a melon is about 92 percent water, and it is not shy about where that water comes from. An inch or two a week, delivered at the soil line, keeps growth steady. Ease off slightly as fruit ripens; a flood right before harvest dilutes sugars and can split rinds.

Feed moderately at planting with castings worked into the hill, then side-dress once vines start running and again at first fruit set. Too much nitrogen late in the season grows leaves instead of melons and delays ripening, which is the opposite of the deal.

Common problems

• Fusarium wilt — vines yellow and collapse, often on one side first. Rotate beds, choose resistant varieties where available, and never plant melons in the same spot year after year.
• Downy and powdery mildew — humid Florida air is their home turf. Space for airflow, water at the soil line, and remove badly infected leaves promptly.
• Anthracnose and gummy stem blight — leaf spots and stem cankers in wet weather. Rotate, mulch to stop soil splash, and buy clean seed.
• Pickleworm and rindworm — caterpillars that bore into fruit. Scout under leaves, use row cover until flowering (then remove it so bees can pollinate), and pick damaged fruit early.
• Aphids and cucumber beetles — aphids spread viruses and beetles chew seedlings. Row cover early, strong water blasts for aphids, and hand-picking for beetles on small plantings.

Harvest

Pick when the tendril nearest the stem is dry and brown, the ground spot is creamy yellow, and the thump is deep and hollow. With a melon this size, err on the side of waiting a day: an underripe Jubilee is a lot of melon to be disappointed by.

Store whole melons in a cool spot for a week or two; cut melon goes in the fridge and gets eaten fast, because it does not improve with age. Save seed only from fully ripe, open-pollinated fruit, and keep varieties separated if you want the seed to stay true — watermelons cross with enthusiasm.

Saving seeds

Jubilee is a statement melon, oblong, light green with dark stripes, 20 to 40 pounds, sweet red flesh with a fine texture, released in 1963, so saved seed comes true — start seed indoors 2 to 3 weeks before your last frost, or direct-sow once the soil is reliably above 70°F, and give the vines room to run. The full method is in the Saving seeds section of the Watermelon guide.