Commercially introduced by us
Phonetically pronounced:
Yeni Dünya is an old commercial variety that was once widely grown in Northwest Region of Turkey. Fruits of Yeni Dünya have light green and thin rind with red, juicy, crunchy and sweet flesh. Each fruit can weigh as much as 10 lbs. Seeds are white. Our plants produced 4-5 fruits and performed very well throughout the drought of Spring 2017.
Our current seed stock was grown by Jamie Swofford of Old North Farm in North Carolina. You can follow them on their Instagram page @oldnorthfarmwnc.
Packet has 20 seeds
Due to it’s winter storage capabilities, I give it 5 Stars, otherwise I’d give it 4 stars due to the newer fruitsets decreasing in size as the season progresses and the almost tough to determine time of harvest. So what do I mean by winter storage? Although watermelon season is over for zone 9b, I still have a Yeni Dunya watermelon in storage (sitting on my carpet floor unbothered by life) that’s been picked and hasn’t been eaten yet and we’re now into December. I planted 5 seeds and 4 sprouted healthily, then the vines began to vigorously sprawl so be sure to give them some space, another bonus is that they also produce tons of flowers early on which helps to attract pollinators! It takes about 110 days to get a ripe fruit after direct sowing and the plants don’t need much water, if any at all. My largest Yeni Dunya was 11 pounds and I saved loads of seeds from it. As the season progressed, although the melons began to decrease in size, the amount of melons on each vine remained constant which basically means each plant is always putting out female flowers almost everyday. Out of (4) 20+ foot long mature watermelon vines, I easily harvested 16+ watermelons that were refreshingly sweet, even when I accidentally picked some underripe due to me not yet knowing when this variety is at peak ripeness. If picked underripe, I’d recommend to use this variety as a base for juices or smoothies due to its refreshing sweet taste, also if you wait too long to harvest then you’ll quickly realize how fast this variety can go overripe!