From the garden
July is watermelon season. Store-bought melons are filling grocery bins, but soon garden-grown watermelons will mature and be ready for harvest. Picking a melon from the grocer is often hit-and-miss. Here are some pointers to pick a ripe, store-bought melon:
• A creamy yellow ground spot, the spot where it laid on the ground when the melon was connected to the vine. White ground spots indicate the melon was harvested immature.
• The rind is tough. A soft rind indicates the melon is overripe.
• Green-skinned melons turn from bright shiny green to a duller color.
• The strip between striped melons darkens.
• The stem attachment end is brown. Garden-grown melons planted in May are beginning to ripen and soon will be ready for harvest. Harvesting melons at their just-ripe stage of maturity is important because once picked, watermelons do not continue to ripen. When a melon is severed from the plant it is as mature as it will get. Knowing the variety of your melon is important since some varieties, like the designer melon ‘Natsu Cocoa’, will be ready for harvest in as few as 65 days after planting, while the standard melon ‘Crimson Sweet’ has 85 days to maturity. Smaller fruited varieties generally mature earlier than varieties that bear larger fruit.
Knowing what to look for as your melons begin to size up will prepare you for timing the harvest. Do not rush the harvest, as the ripening stage of a melon intensifies the last two weeks before the melon reaches its full maturation. Don’t harvest too early because a melon will not get any riper after it has been harvested.
As harvest nears cut back on irrigation and eliminate watering the week before the planned harvest. Continuing to irrigate before harvesting or overwatering can lead to bland melons.
Watch the tendrils. The tendril is the best indicator of a ripe, garden-grown watermelon. Every melon has a tendril attached to the stem that connects the melon to the vine. The tendril on a young melon is green and pliable. As a melon matures tendrils senesce, turn brown and begin to dry. A fully dry, dead tendril indicates the melon is ripe. But careful - if a melon sits for days after the tendril has died it will overripen.
Sever melon from a vine with a sharp knife, chill it, and enjoy.
Ellen Peffley Harp, a retired professor of horticulture at Texas Tech University, writes about gardening for several Texas newspapers.
