Kitchen Garden Forum

I have a very nice free self sown (smooth skinned) ) melon developing in a south facing border obviously from seeds thrown onto compost heap. It looks as if it's reaching the nine months pregnancy stage (!). Can anybody tell me how to decide when it's ripe and ready for picking . I'm going on holiday in a few days and don,t want to miss the plerasure of enjoying it. If I pick it a little early and store it in my fridge will it stay inert or spoil? Never grown them before deliberately or accidentally so it,s guesswork!
As a matter of interest does anybody on here grow melons outdoors with any degree of success?

Hi Primrose - grew one last year & got 2 watermelons off it. Unfortunately one of the guys on the lottie convinced me that ripeness relates to hollow tapping ( they were very hollow sounding) but a bit of research says it's the change of colour on the stem bit. They were lovely but flesh was not ripe to edge.

Westi

Hi Primrose
One method that works well is to smell the melon, particularly the stem end. A sweet scent is a good sign that your fruit is ripe and ready to be eaten.
Also look for signs of ripeness on the skin - yellowing and so on. I'm assuming this is a honeydew type.

Good luck with it - the homegrown ones are a real treat far superior to those miserable specimens in the supermarkets that never seem to ripen.

John

Well After further examination I,m beginning to think that my melon is not a melon at all but some kind of winter squash. Having thrown both Sweet Dumpling and Crown Prince seeds onto the compost heap as well as melon seeds I think there is some funny business going on with this one. I will just have to leave it until the leaves start to die back and it,s ready
to be either tempered or cut open. The skin is smooth though rather than crinkly and rough which suggests more of a squash than a melon ? Don,t know how to attach a photo to ask for a second opinion.