How Do You Know if a.watermelon Is Ripe?

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No one can tell you exactly how to choice a adept watermelon, because and then much of the flavor depends on growing and storage conditions. What I can give you lot are tips to teach you how to tell if a watermelon is ripe – PLUS – I'll tell you how to store a watermelon for all-time flavor and nutrition.

Contents

• How to Tell if a Watermelon is Ripe – four Tips to Assistance You lot Pick a Good Watermelon
  • #1 – Check the Field Spot on the Underside of the Watermelon
  • #2 – Check the Sound to See if a Watermelon is Ripe
  • #iii – If you want a ripe watermelon, brand sure your watermelon is at full growth
  • #four – Check the Little Curling Tendril Located Where the Watermelon Stem Joins the Main Vine
  • #v – Poke Your Flower Cease (bonus from i of our reader comments)
• How to Store Watermelon
• Tips from "An Experienced Farmer" on How to Pick a Skillful Watermelon
  • #ane – Look for the Field Spot
  • #ii – Expect for 'webbing'
  • #three – 'Boy' and 'Daughter' Watermelons
  • #iv – Pay Attention to the Size
  • #v – Audit the Tail
• Skilful Watermelons for Northern Growers
• Picking the Perfect Watermelon

How to Tell if a Watermelon is Ripe – 4 Tips to Help You Option a Good Watermelon

Practiced watermelon or bad watermelon? Growing weather and storage brand a huge difference in watermelon flavor and texture, but these tips will help yous choose the best available watermelon. Some of these tips will help you tell when a watermelon is ripe on the vine, others utilize to both garden watermelons and watermelons at the grocery store or farmers market place.

Ripe watermelons are a little trickier to identify than muskmelons. Muskmelons skid right off the vine (i.east. come loose on their own) when ripe. Watermelons don't fall off the vine when ripe.

#i – Cheque the Field Spot on the Underside of the Watermelon

The underside of the watermelon where information technology touched the ground should exist buttery yellow to dark xanthous in colour. This is called the field patch or field spot. If the field spot every bit pasty white equally a baldheaded guy's head in the middle of a Wisconsin winter, it probably hasn't attain superlative ripeness.

Different growing conditions and different types of melons will produce a range of colors (within and out). Warmer atmospheric condition usually yields a darker field spot.

#2 – Check the Sound to See if a Watermelon is Ripe

This is a archetype way to pick a good watermelon, and the internet is filled with descriptions of how a ripe watermelon should sound. About say "flat" or "tedious". I retrieve that's a poor clarification. For my office, "flat and dull" is the sound yous get when yous rap on something similar a giant zucchini – or an underripe watermelon.

A ripe watermelon should accept a nice, deep hollow sound, more similar a drum or knocking on a door. I did a quick video (below). My Powershot D10 doesn't quite do it justice, but you get the general thought.

#iii – If you want a ripe watermelon, brand sure your watermelon is at total growth

This is for those trying to effigy out how to tell if a watermelon is ripe in the garden. If you're watching the patch, y'all can tell when a detail watermelon is large, well filled out, and hasn't changed significantly in size for some fourth dimension. Days to maturity will give you a rough judge of expected watermelon ripening fourth dimension. For beginning time growers, you lot can check the expected size on the package and weigh them if you desire, just the all-time way to tell is to discover the growth habits of the watermelon.

#iv – Check the Niggling Curling Tendril Located Where the Watermelon Stalk Joins the Main Vine

This is some other tip for checking ripe watermelons in the garden. Right where the stem to your melon joins the main vine, at that place should be a niggling curling tendril of vine. If the tendril is still green and springy, the melon is even so growing.

If this piddling tendril is brown and dried, odds are your melon is every bit ripe as it's going to get. Sometimes all your vines may start dying back before you've harvested, not simply a tendril. Ready or non, your watermelons are done growing. Too, if it's been dry out, sometimes the tendrils will dry out dorsum prematurely, then cheque the other signs first.

Jerry shares:

I mostly agree with the methods mentioned in this article.

My dad grew watermelons for many years in Florida so he had the advantage of following the fruit'south development to complete ripeness. I have passed his knowledge on to many friends who confirm his method of ripeness selection.

Because so much depends on soil fertility and irrigation/rainfall sweetness is hard to determine. Nevertheless, determining RIPENESS is a adequately full proof method. Thumping a melon doesn't mean much at all regarding sugar content.

In fact, the only indicator a consumer has in the marketplace for determining the melon's RIPENESS is by pressing on the blossom terminate of the water melon to see how much "requite" it has. The blossom cease is opposite the stem end. If information technology is ripe there will be some requite when pressed with the thumb. If information technology's not ripe it will be hard every bit a rock. A watermelon that'due south TOO ripe it will give little resistance, and probable be "mealy" inside.

It'southward ever worked for me, for what it'south worth.

Cheers, Jerry. I still detect the "thump" helpful, and will requite flower terminate poking a attempt adjacent time we choice a watermelon out at the shop.

How to Store Watermelon

Before our melons were ready, I picked one up at the grocery shop that I really shouldn't have bought. It was during our brief hot spell this summer, and the melons had obviously been stored too common cold because they were chilled and sweating in the bins. Sure enough, I got it home and the flavour was bland and the texture was mushy. Melons like it warm! Storing watermelons at room temperature also makes them more nutritious.

From the article "Watermelon Fruit nutritional value health benefit" past Ray Sahelian, M.D.:

Watermelons stored at room temperature deliver more nutrients than refrigerated or freshly picked melons. Researchers tested several popular varieties of watermelon stored for 14 days at lxx °F, 55 °F and 41 °F. Whole watermelons stored at 70 °F, which is about room temperature in air-conditioned buildings, had substantially more nutrients. Compared with freshly picked fruit, watermelon stored at seventy °F gained up to xl percent more lycopene and l percent to 139 percent actress beta-carotene, which the torso converts to vitamin A. Watermelons proceed to produce these nutrients after they are picked and that chilling slows this procedure.

The usual shelf life for watermelons is fourteen to 21 days at 13 °C (55 °F) after harvest. At refrigerated temperatures, such equally 41 °F, watermelon starts to decay and develop lesions later on a week.

Then don't shop your melon in the fridge until it'due south cutting (or chill only briefly correct before serving). Once it'southward cut and refrigerated, eat it up ASAP.

Tips from "An Experienced Farmer" on How to Selection a Good Watermelon

There are numerous spider web pages, photos and videos circulating on the internet right now (2018) claiming that they are "tips from an experienced farmer" on how to pick a good watermelon. Some of these are valid ways to bank check if a watermelon is ripe, some of them are flat out wrong. I suspect that the information was made up as a way to sell round watermelons with marks on them. I'll review these "tips" (listed in italics) to permit you know what'southward correct and what's incorrect.

#1 – Look for the Field Spot

The yellowish spot, known equally the field spot, is the place where the watermelon rested on the ground. Ripe watermelons ever have flossy yellowish or fifty-fifty orange-yellow spots, non white. – CORRECT, every bit noted above

#2 – Look for 'webbing'

These weblike brown spots on the watermelon mean that bees touched the pollinating parts of the flower many times. The more than pollination, the sweeter the fruit is. – WRONG

As noted by Texas A&M Agrilife Extension Institute Disease Handbook:

"Cracks, scarring, and pitting tin can be caused by mechanical damage when vegetables are immature, Insects can likewise cause such injury. Animals, such equally wild hogs and racoons, tin can cause more substantial damage."

In my experience, heavy exterior scarring often leads to tough or woody areas inside the fruit. (Mild scarring is not a problem.) More scars does non mean a sweeter watermelon.

#3 – 'Boy' and 'Girl' Watermelons

Many people do not know that farmers differentiate watermelons by gender. For example, 'boys' are bigger, have an elongated shape, and a watery gustatory modality. The 'girls' have a rounded shape and are very sweetness. – Incorrect

All watermelons come up from female flowers, which have a minor swelling at the base of the flower. There are no male watermelons. The shape of the watermelon is determined by the variety of watermelon. A circular watermelon is not necessarily a good watermelon. For the melons pictured below, both were good, simply the so-chosen "male watermelon" (the longer one) was sweeter then the round i.

#four – Pay Attention to the Size

It is meliorate to cull neither the largest nor the smallest watermelon. Select an boilerplate-sized fruit. And note, please: large or small, the watermelon should experience heavy for its size. – SIZE DOESN'T MATTER

Check out a bin of watermelons at the grocery shop, and y'all'll typically find that they are all like in size. Other than selecting a ripe watermelon in the garden (that has reached full growth), size doesn't matter. If you lot kickoff lifting watermelons, I bet in virtually cases you'll observe that their weights are like as well. Odds are that a given batch of grocery store melons all came from the aforementioned area and ripened nether the aforementioned conditions, so this isn't a peculiarly useful tip.

#five – Inspect the Tail

A dried tail indicates that the watermelon is ripe. However, if the tail is green, it probably ways that the watermelon was picked too soon and volition non be ripe. – MAYBE

As noted above, information technology's the tendril next to the watermelon on the vine that acts equally a ripeness indicator. The vine itself may or may not indicate ripeness. A brown stem could mean that the watermelon was harvested some time ago, and information technology had fourth dimension to dry, or it could mean that the plant was dying when the watermelon was harvested. You accept no style to know for certain.

Good Watermelons for Northern Growers

Growing watermelons with a fairly short growing season can be a challenge, but with a little extra TLC we manage a good harvest. Some of our favorite watermelon varieties include:

• Orangeglo
• Blacktail Mount
• Chelsea
• Xanthous Petite

Even though Orangeglo and Yellow Petite don't get blood-red, the same rules nevertheless use for determining if they are ripe. Here's one of my favorite watermelon photos from a few years agone.

Picking the Perfect Watermelon

Back in my late teens and early on 20's, my jobs at the family unit catering business included picking out the watermelons and carving the watermelon boats for parties. I was known as the resident watermelon expert, almost guaranteed to be able to pick out a practiced watermelon, if there was a good watermelon to be found. The last time I carved up a watermelon was for a Light-green Bay Packer party that nosotros hosted for family unit and friends.

Unlike some fruits, watermelons do not ripen further once they are off the vine. Cull carefully, and store watermelons the correct manner to keep them flavorful.

Can you tell if a watermelon is ripe by smell? Nope. Uncut watermelons are less fragrant than muskmelons, because they don't have that open end where the vine was formerly attached. You volition never find me sniffing watermelons in the grocery store, but you may find me sniffing cantaloupes. (I practice my own stunts. 😉 )

Thanks for reading! We love your shares and comments. Did I miss any tips that yous employ to pick a expert watermelon? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

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Originally posted in 2014, updated in 2017, 2018.

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Source: https://commonsensehome.com/tell-watermelon-is-ripe/

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