welcome to the watermelon patch if there is one question i see the most
often about growing watermelon it's how do i know the perfect time to pick a
ripe watermelon there are a lot of like myths and old
wives tales floating around out there about how to tell when a watermelon is
ripe so i want to show you the single most
reliable indicator that i've been taught to tell when a watermelon is perfectly
ripe and ready to pick so first of all let's start with the i
think the most common things that people will tell you
and that includes the thumping so the common advice is to thump on the
watermelons and the deeper the sound the more ripe they are there is a little
something to this in the beginning but ultimately it's not going to tell
you when the melons perfectly ripe now another indicator that people often
share is to look at the spot on the bottom of
the melon the common advice is that you want to wait for that spot to turn
from white or pale green to kind of a dull
yellow i still tend to look for that but i don't use that as my sole
indicator another one that i just came across
which i found really interesting is the straw test
but let me show you the indicator that i always use
so the key is all in this little tendril right here what you want to do is
follow the stem of your melon down to where it connects to the main
stem right at that intersection you will see
there is always a tendril and usually a leaf
you want to look for this tendril to be completely dried down and brown
that is how you tell when your watermelon is ripe
if there's any green left to that you want to wait a bit
longer and just keep an eye on that tendril so this guy is ready to pick
let's cut him open and see how we did
this was my very dry brown tendril watermelon let's cut this open and see
how we did so i like that i like when they snap
open like that that's usually a pretty good sign
so you can see this is a seeded watermelon
but these seeds being completely black is a good sign of maturity
this is a pinkish red variety so i know my color is right
and then we're just gonna take a little hunk of flesh out of there
perfectly sweet and juicy but most importantly does it pass the kid test
it does now compare that to this under ripe watermelon
you can see the much lighter color and you can see these seeds
have not turned all the way dark brown or black so that is an
immature melon for sure so first to demonstrate the thumping and
how it can work in the beginning these are some melons that came off
another plant that died before any of the melons were ripe
you can hear the kind of sound that these make
now here is a ripe melon
definitely a difference in sound so that will get you
close to knowing when the melon is starting to ripen up
same thing with this spot again because these were immature
still kind of a whitish spot i think some of these like this one
doesn't even have a spot at all and then you can see compared the
difference in color here so again that's going to get you close
that's going to give you an idea of when you need to start watching
for that tendril change but the tendril change is really going to give you the
best fine-tuned indicator now this is an
interesting one i came across some information on the internet that said
a november 1945 issue of popular science describes the method of the watermelon
ripeness straw test so you take a broom straw
you lay it horizontally across the melon and if the straw turns to a 45 degree
angle the melon is ripe apparently this works by the electrical force present in
the watermelon but as you can see
i'm putting my straw on there and there's
maybe we go this way there's not a whole heck of a lot happening
we'll try it i don't know i assumed this was horizontally we'll try it this way
too and see if anything happens
moved a little bit let's try one of the unripe melons
i'll go this way
hmm that one also moved i think it has more to do with
the angle of the broom straw and the roundness of the melon than
anything
so yeah i'm gonna say that's complete baloney
stick with the tendril folks and be sure to let me know
do you have a reliable indicator that you use to tell when your watermelons
are ripe i'd be really curious to hear what is working for other people
thanks for watching and i'll see you next time