Thursday 10 February 2011

when are watermelons ripe?

That's the million-dollar question.  My little sugar baby watermelons sure plumped up quickly - Friday's flooding downpour may have had something to do with that.  But apparently watermelons are notoriously hard to tell when they're ripe.  You're meant to tap them, scratch them, examine skin colour and vine brown-ness.  Leaving me with, really, no idea how to tell.

This is my biggest and most ripe-looking.
http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden11/watermelon1.JPG
This one's a bit smaller.
http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden11/watermelon3.JPG
I think I'll leave them a while longer.  I've seen photos of them a lot darker skin than this, plus the little springy vine near the stem is still very green.  I hate being patient!


2 comments:

Lanie said...

I've only grown watermelons once (bit tricky on 280 square metre block)...but I had trouble working out when they were ripe too. I found this quite amusing, confusing list: http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/cornucop/2002071935010165.html (look at the final point!)
In the end, I picked some unripe, some ripe..and found that the best ones were ones that came off the stem fairly easily when I pulled it a bit.

Alexa said...

Thanks Lanie, any advice is appreciated! Although as you say, there's almost too much advice out there.