How do you select a watermelon?

[Peanut]

What’s more 4th of July than a watermelon? I’ve grown and sold a few thousand melons at the farmers market so my methods work pretty good, at least for me. I thought I’d share and see if others have a method.

Picking a melon from the field for me is the easiest way to get a perfectly ripe melon. I look at its pigtail. Where the vine attaches to the melon it usually curls like a cork screw and is called the “pigtail”. When I sold melons at the farmers market every other day it was simple. I selected the melons whose pigtail had just died (turned brown).

Since I picked every other day, I kept an eye out for the pigtails that were just starting to die also. Those melons would be ready to pick two days in the future.

Selecting a melon at a grocery store is much more difficult. I use the thump method, it’s pretty reliable. It’s based on echo location, like a bat or submarine uses. As a melon ripens it softens internally. A melon that is on the green side is hard inside, a thump will have a much higher pitch than a thump on a ripe melon, which is softer inside.

Melons at stores here come in a big bin on a pallet. I might thump 12 to 15 of the melons in a bin. I look for the melon with the highest pitch from a thump to the melon with the lowest pitch. I rate the melons on a scale 1 (lowest pitch) to 10 (highest pitch).

I want to buy a melon around 2.5 to 3.5 on the scale. Melons with the lowest pitch (1) are usually too ripe. Any melon above a 4 is too green.

The flaw to the thump methods is this… If all the melons in a bin are too green, I’m only picking a melon that is less green. If all the melons are too ripe then I’m getting an over ripe melon.

Today I had 2 bins of melons to choose from at the store… I picked this one, it was about a 3 on the thump scale. In reality it’s about a 2, just starting to get over ripe.

 

[Bacpacker]

Good topic Peanut. The pigtail is my #1 go to when growing them. In a store I look for 2 things, is the skin shiny or dull. Shiny ones are not ripe. I also look for the white spot, if it's still white its not ripe. Ripe ones are more orange. I also do the thump test and peanut had a great description for that. I'd never thought about a number scale, but that makes it easy.

 

[Peanut]

Whoops, I forgot about the white spot... I've never looked for shiny or dull. A new one for me... I'll be sure to look next time..

 

[phideaux]

Like @Peanut , I've grown many watermelons, not as many as you, but a lot.

In the field , same as you guys dead pigtail.
In-store, same as you guys ,
Didn't know the full and shiny method,
I just had one last week, $3.68 at WM.
I chose a good one, was super sweet and perfect meat.
First ever. Usually too ripe or green.

I still have more problem picking canteloupe at store.

Btw, my 20+ hills of watermelon are blooming, as are my 20+ hills of canteloupe.

Jim

 

[Bacpacker]

Cantaloupe in the store I go strictly by smell. If there is a decent aroma, it's ripe. Almost all cant's are picked way to green since they are so fragile.

 

[phideaux]

Cantaloupe in the store I go strictly by smell. If there is a decent aroma, it's ripe. Almost all cant's are picked way to green since they are so fragile.

I try smell at the stem,
But I try to look at the color of the melon..if the skin has green in it , it's always green inside, not ripe.

Don't mean to side track.

Jim

 

[backlash]

Put a broom straw perpendicular on the Mellon. If the straw turns to parallel the Mellon is ripe.
I also read if the Mellon thumps in B flat it's ripe. I wouldn't know B flat from a chainsaw.
Cantaloup and pineapple I smell. If they don't smell like they should they aren't ripe.

 

[Haertig]

My method is rather unsophisticated. I buy a watermelon. Any watermelon. I like to eat them cold, so it goes into the refrigerator when I get home. After it has chilled for a day or more, I cut into it and try a piece. If it's not ripe enough, back into the refrigerator it goes for a few days until it ripens a bit more and gets tastier.

Store bought tomatoes (yeuch) and bananas are the same process (minus the refrigerator).

Unsophisticated, I am.

I use the same type of technique when shooting in the wind. My buddies are out there with expensive wind meters, flags, and all kinds of gear using their ballistics programs to calculate how far their shots will be off due to wind. I've got one friend who takes his box of cornstarch and throws some into the air to get wind direction (usually covering me like bakery goods in the process). Me, I just shoot at the bullseye. Then I look through my scope and mil how far off the shot hit. In an 8-10mph 90 degree wind, that's maybe 1/2 mil or so at 100 yards (with a .22). So my subsequent shots I just hold off that measured 1/2 mil and get spot-on hits. I usually get a dozen shots off before my friends have finished fiddling with their wind meters and taken their first shot - which is usually just as far off as my first shot was. So much for calculating. It's even more fun at 200 yards. They're measuring temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, messing with something called "density altitude" (I think it's called), and who knows what other parameters. Me? I just turn my elevation turret one full rotation. 50 clicks. 5 mils. That's what I've found to be the drop of my .22 ammo when zeroed at 100 yards and subsequently shot at 200 yards. That one full turret turn is dang near perfect most of the time. If not exact, I mil how far I was off, adjust the turret to compensate, and off I go. Once I'm done shooting for the day, my friends have just about completed their calculating and are almost ready to take their first shot.

 

[Weedygarden]

Thank you, Peanut. Your discussing how to select the best watermelon by ripeness, but what about the variety of watermelon? I find that some of them are almost tasteless, and the texture is weird. Seedless watermelons came into vogue, and you almost cannot find one around here with seeds. I don't really care for them. I understand that the seeds may bother people, but not me.

A few years ago I grew a Moon and Starts melon that was the best melon I had eaten in years. It had seeds. Really only one that grew to be a decent size but several that were small. We grew more another year, and someone, not me, picked them way too early, not even close to ripe.

I also had cantaloupe that same year that were the best. I had gotten both melons from someone's Etsy store. We saved seeds, and when I put them in the envelope, I was told just label them cantaloupe, not the variety. I resisted, but he insisted. We all know better. The variety makes a big difference, and now, what was it? I don't know!

So how do you select the better varieties of watermelons? What types have better flavor and texture?

 

[joel]

I been doing it wrong. I only check melons in the field. In the store I get the biggest in the bin & never got a bad one yet.

 

[Bacpacker]

Thank you, Peanut. Your discussing how to select the best watermelon by ripeness, but what about the variety of watermelon? I find that some of them are almost tasteless, and the texture is weird. Seedless watermelons came into vogue, and you almost cannot find one around here with seeds. I don't really care for them. I understand that the seeds may bother people, but not me.

A few years ago I grew a Moon and Starts melon that was the best melon I had eaten in years. It had seeds. Really only one that grew to be a decent size but several that were small. We grew more another year, and someone, not me, picked them way too early, not even close to ripe.

I also had cantaloupe that same year that were the best. I had gotten both melons from someone's Etsy store. We saved seeds, and when I put them in the envelope, I was told just label them cantaloupe, not the variety. I resisted, but he insisted. We all know better. The variety makes a big difference, and now, what was it? I don't know!

So how do you select the better varieties of watermelons? What types have better flavor and texture?

Weedy I try new variety's most every year, or have in the past any way. Almost all of them are heirloom types. I rarely get hybrids, just never liked the flavors as much. Plus I do save seeds from mine.
Moon and Stars is one of the better ones I've grown. Others are Sugar Baby, Black Diamond, & Charleston Grey's. One hybrid I liked was one called Pony Yellow.

 

[Peanut]

@Weedygarden Find one you like and stick with it. There are lots of heirloom seed companies that have been posted under gardens. Try are few seeds of other varieties from time to time. Taste is purely subjective, what ever you like.

@joel Every family outing or summer holiday I see bad melons people have gotten at the supermarket. This is really a strange year... no one local has ripe melons., Last year most local melons got to much rain. Looks like the case for this summer also when they do start getting ripe. I'll probably be buying more melons at the store this year. Got me thinking about how to pick a good supermarket melon.

Cantaloupes are a crap shoot... I've bought them when they smelled perfect, but turns out they weren't. I try to buy cantaloupes local also. If I know the farmer I'm buying from it's sort of an implied guarantee.

 

[joel]

Peanut, think you, I did not know I was that good or is it just luck?

 

[Peanut]

@ either you're the luckiest man alive or the magic melon man! lolol

On the other hand you're down in melon country. Your grocery store can really buy local, growers close by. Where I'm at super market melons are trucked in from FL and points south.

I have to buy from the farmers market to get local..

My melons haven't even bloomed yet, bad year for melons here abouts. I stopped at the farmers market this week and everybody was in the same boat.

 

[joel]

We have melons the size of quarter in the garden.

 

[Cnsper]

What’s more 4th of July than a watermelon? I’ve grown and sold a few thousand melons at the farmers market so my methods work pretty good, at least for me. I thought I’d share and see if others have a method.

Picking a melon from the field for me is the easiest way to get a perfectly ripe melon. I look at its pigtail. Where the vine attaches to the melon it usually curls like a cork screw and is called the “pigtail”. When I sold melons at the farmers market every other day it was simple. I selected the melons whose pigtail had just died (turned brown).

Since I picked every other day, I kept an eye out for the pigtails that were just starting to die also. Those melons would be ready to pick two days in the future.

Selecting a melon at a grocery store is much more difficult. I use the thump method, it’s pretty reliable. It’s based on echo location, like a bat or submarine uses. As a melon ripens it softens internally. A melon that is on the green side is hard inside, a thump will have a much higher pitch than a thump on a ripe melon, which is softer inside.

Melons at stores here come in a big bin on a pallet. I might thump 12 to 15 of the melons in a bin. I look for the melon with the highest pitch from a thump to the melon with the lowest pitch. I rate the melons on a scale 1 (lowest pitch) to 10 (highest pitch).

I want to buy a melon around 2.5 to 3.5 on the scale. Melons with the lowest pitch (1) are usually too ripe. Any melon above a 4 is too green.

The flaw to the thump methods is this… If all the melons in a bin are too green, I’m only picking a melon that is less green. If all the melons are too ripe then I’m getting an over ripe melon.

Today I had 2 bins of melons to choose from at the store… I picked this one, it was about a 3 on the thump scale. In reality it’s about a 2, just starting to get over ripe.

View attachment 45896

I use the thump method too but I ho by feel and not sound. Hold it in my left hand and thump it with the right. I always end up picking the best melons. I can't explain it but the vibration just feels different to me.

Grandma always sent me to pick the melon

 

[snappy1]

Thanks for all the tips! My watermelons have bloomed but I haven't looked for any yet.

(Thread drift)
With mangoes, I go pretty much by smell at the stem and a little softness. If I wait until they have yellow or red on them, they can be too ripe. I just peeled and cut 48 of them over a 4 day period. Just kept putting the harder ones back to the back and by the 4th day, the hardest ones had softened and smelled great. Tasted great also!
Will make Mango Jam and Mango Jalapeno Jam.

 

[phideaux]

I tell you something else that makes a difference in how they taste.

The soil.

Several years I grew my garden in a low lying , gravely clay soil , that would not grow sweet corn at all, that is now my shooting range .

I always grew Crimson Sweet..everybody in the county talked about my melons. Wanted to know how I got them so sweet.
I couldn't splain it, I just grew them , pickup truck full every year , took them to town square and gave them away.
I used to drive to TN for red dirt grown tomatoes....people drove up from TN for my melons

Then I moved the melons to my other garden, on high ground, richer , no gravel, good clean dirt.
The melons were hardly fit to eat. Not sweet, grainy, mealy.

Also , I found out with canteloupe and watermelon , they're sweeter if they get no water the last couple weeks before ready to pick. Took me years to figure that out.

Crimson Sweet variety.
Then, Sugar Baby.
Got both this year and I don't care if they cross pollinate.

Jim

 

[Morgan101]

Peanut: You have forgotten more about melons than I will ever know. I use the Jerry Seinfeld method: "Fruit is a risk I am willing to take." Thanks for the advice. I hope it improves my selection process.

 

[Cabin Fever]

The way I pick a melon is to drive to Texas. Find a little, old, weathered black or brown man selling melons out of his 1960s or 70s pickup truck on the side of the road. He'll have one or more melons cut open for you to sample. Every single melon will be a good one. Trust me on this.

 

[Curmudgeon]

I still have more problem picking canteloupe at store.

Press down on the stem area at the top of the cantaloupe with your thumbs. It should be firm, not hard as a rock, giving a little with pressure.

Shake it, do you hear/feel the seeds flopping inside?

 

[Peanut]

Also , I found out with canteloupe and watermelon , they're sweeter if they get no water the last couple weeks before ready to pick. Took me years to figure that out.

Jim

That's especially true for peaches... Rain as, or just before they are just getting ripe dilutes the sugars inside. The fruit will be a little bigger/weigh just a bit more but they aren't as good.

My dad said it best... the difference between a good peach and a great peach is 3 weeks of dry weather.

Thanks @Curmudgeon I'll look for that if mine ever get ripe.

 

[phideaux]

Jim

 

[phideaux]

Ha, I wouldn't last 3 minutes picking watermelon like that.

Jim

 

[Bacpacker]

Me neither

 

[Meerkat]

Cantaloupe in the store I go strictly by smell. If there is a decent aroma, it's ripe. Almost all cant's are picked way to green since they are so fragile.

Me too BacP, always go by smell of cantalope and so far it works for us.

 

[LadyLocust]

I’m a few minutes late to the party (surprise) but you know those brown lines on the rind? You want one with those- they are “sugar lines” so should be a sweet melon. If they are picked too early, they won’t have any. We only get a couple watermelons per summer but since I learned that, they’ve been good

 

[Support Gunner]

I tell you something else that makes a difference in how they taste.

The soil.

Several years I grew my garden in a low lying , gravely clay soil , that would not grow sweet corn at all, that is now my shooting range .

I always grew Crimson Sweet..everybody in the county talked about my melons. Wanted to know how I got them so sweet.
I couldn't splain it, I just grew them , pickup truck full every year , took them to town square and gave them away.
I used to drive to TN for red dirt grown tomatoes....people drove up from TN for my melons

Then I moved the melons to my other garden, on high ground, richer , no gravel, good clean dirt.
The melons were hardly fit to eat. Not sweet, grainy, mealy.

Also , I found out with canteloupe and watermelon , they're sweeter if they get no water the last couple weeks before ready to pick. Took me years to figure that out.

Crimson Sweet variety.
Then, Sugar Baby.
Got both this year and I don't care if they cross pollinate.

Jim

We grow crimson sweet watermelon and they are sooooooo good. They are not the biggest watermelons out there but I think they are the best tasting ones.

Yes, by not watering them a few weeks before picking they put more energy into producing sugars.

 

[Peanut]

I’m a few minutes late to the party (surprise) but you know those brown lines on the rind? You want one with those- they are “sugar lines” so should be a sweet melon. If they are picked too early, they won’t have any. We only get a couple watermelons per summer but since I learned that, they’ve been good

I hadn't heard of "sugar lines"... did a net search and found a few photos... I've seen them but never connected them to the quality of a melon. Good tip!

Lets see...
Thump method - me and Casper. It's subjective. You have to thump a lot of melons to get the hang of what constitutes a good melon..

Yellow spot - fairly easy to see and compare to others at the market.

Shiny or dull - also easy to see...

Sugar lines - also easy to see...

Weight - easy to do at the market

I don't see how someone could get a bad melon checking all these things.

 

[Peanut]

I posted else where that yesterday I stopped to buy a watermelon from an old man with a pickup load of them. He was about to go home since someone had brought a melon they bought back to him. Of course, he gave them their money back. The old man didn’t know he had a load of rain logged watermelons.

On the outside they look perfectly normal. The pollen marks were there, the yellow spot looked good. They even thumped correctly. The only way to have known was to cut a few melons. Someone who grows a patch to sell usually doesn’t do this. They wait until the pigtail browns, they pick them and take them to the market. In this case the market was in front of a gas station.

I really wanted a melon. The old man told me about the other customer. We discussed melons for a bit. Locally, this is the worst year I’ve ever seen for melons of any kind.

I paid $3 for one melon. He gave me three more in case I had a bad one. The first two I’ve cut were bad… But, most people who cut one would think they were still green. They are not green. They are in fact ripe but look really strange. They taste, for lack of a better term, washed out, not very sweet. The rinds are super thick. There are large, sometimes pronounced, white veins running throughout the melon. Not a good melon by any means, not worth paying for but I still got a couple of bites from each of the 2 melons I cut.

I felt bad for the old guy. He put in all the work. time, and money necessary to grow a patch of melons... Only to have them ruined by too much rain.

So, in case you ever buy a melon that looks like this… They just go too much rain during development. Definetly ask for your money back.