GardenWatermelon variety
Desert King Watermelon
✓ In your garden
Desert King is a picnic watermelon, ready in about 85 days. It makes big picnic-sized melons. Watermelons need a long, hot summer, full sun, and room to run — plant well after frost. It’s ripe when the curly tendril nearest the fruit dries brown and the ground spot turns creamy yellow.
“A sweet summer watermelon for a long, hot season.”
Growing basics — shared by every watermelon
Desert King grows like any other watermelon. The full picture — how deep to plant, spacing, feeding, pests, harvest — lives on the Watermelon page so it's maintained in one place.
- Sun
- Full Sun
- Spacing (in row)
- 36–60 in
- Row spacing
- 72–96 in
- Planting depth
- 1–2 in
- Soil pH
- 6–7
- Water
- Moderate
What is Desert King good for?
- Fresh & chilledStraight from the fridge. Great
- Juice & agua frescaBlend and strain. Great
- Pickled rindA Southern tradition — for the rind. Skip it
From how it grows — kitchens vary.
What Desert King is known for
Farm Direct Seed describes this as:
- gets by on less water
That is the company selling the seed, describing its own product. True, and worth weighing as such.
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Want the full 10/50/90% odds + nearest stations? Open the frost tool →When to plant Desert King in your zone
Zone 6bGreenhouse or cover on: your start slides ~4 weeks earlier and your harvest stretches ~3 weeks later (shown striped).
Planting seeds straight in the ground only works where the season's long and warm — most gardeners start seeds indoors or buy young plants, or you'd pick your first tomato right as frost hits.
Comfortable — first ripe fruit lands around mid Jul, well before your typical frost (~late Oct).
- Start seeds indoors
- mid Mar – late Mar
- Toughen up outside
- mid Apr – late Apr
- Move plants outside
- late Apr – early May
- Plant seeds outside
- late Apr – early May
- Growing
- early May – mid Jul
- Picking
- mid Jul – early Aug
Typical dates for zone 6b — set your zone or ZIP above for yours.
Growing Desert King — the things that trip people up
- Melons are heat-lovers with big appetites — give them full sun, rich soil, room to sprawl, and a long warm season. In short-season areas, start them indoors and use black plastic or a cover to warm the soil.
- Ease off the water as the fruit ripens — too much late water dilutes the sugar. Judge ripeness by the dried tendril and the creamy-yellow ground spot, not by thumping.
Desert King watermelon at a glance
| Type | Picnic |
|---|---|
| Days to ripe | 85 days after you plant it outside |
| Color | Yellow |
Extra fields from seed-catalog listings and university growing guides. Days to ripe and disease resistance shift with your climate and seed source — double-check with your local extension office before you buy.
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Common questions about Desert King
How long does Desert King take to grow?
About 85 days, and it wants that whole stretch warm — start early in short-season areas.
How do I know Desert King is ripe?
When the curly tendril nearest the fruit dries brown and the spot where it sits on the ground turns from white to creamy yellow.
Browse more watermelon varieties →