How ripe are your melons?
As a barefoot youth, my second cousin and I would get up early, roam his father’s acres of melons, choose one, break it open on the spot and eat it for breakfast. Maybe he knew how to pick a ripe one, but I was the city boy from the southern Arkansas metropolis of El Dorado who knew baseball but not evaluating ripe watermelons.
As a sophisticated veteran gardener, I still am fuzzy on that subject. It matters this summer because dozens of volunteer melon seedlings sprouted out of compost in spring, and I kept several of them just for fun. I also started a few in my greenhouse, all of them are melonating now, and my second cousin is nowhere to be found.
Since our hunter-gatherer days in Africa, we humans have loved our melons. We took them with us out of Africa, and evidence indicates melons migrated through the Mideast to southern Asia, the East Indies and into Australia 4000 years ago. Melons also spread readily around the Mediterranean.
Elongated “snake” melons were mentioned more often than round ones in ancient writings, and they were eaten when smaller like cucumbers because historians figure melons had not yet acquired modern-day sweetness.
However, by the time Raphael and Michaelangelo were eating fruity desserts, cantaloupes and muskmelons were popular all over Italy and migrated from there throughout Europe and eventually to the Western hemisphere. Southern and Central Asian varieties were so prominent in Europe one British reference referred to a typical melon as an Uzbek melon.
Yes, as you suspected, botanically a melon is a very large berry. As far as determining when a modern-day melon is ripe, it depends on what kind it is and who you ask, plus there are thousands of varieties. Cantaloupes, muskmelons and many others are netted, that is, their rinds are lined with raised veins. However, other round varieties such as a Honeydew and Charentais are smooth, others are oblong and large or small and apple-shaped. One bitter Indian melon looks like a long wrinkled cucumber, and some African varieties are lemon-shaped with pointy protrusions, so ripeness rules vary.
Cantaloupes were named for Cantalupo, the city in Italy where they supposedly originated. To check for ripeness, sniff them to see if they smell ripe. How’s that for good advice! Gently shake them because if the seeds are loose, the melon is ready. And for extra fun, squeeze those melons… not too hard, not too soft.
If the stem spot is a bit green, the melon was picked unripe. If it is too soft, the melon is over-ripe. Look for a clean divot.
Of the thousands of varieties, color also matters when determining maturity. I’ve grown Tigger melons for a few years. They are small striped melons which turn a mottled orange when ready. Other melons turn a mellower color and some simply detach from the vine.
If you hold two equally-sized melons, the heavier one is ripest.
And we have yet to mention watermelons. These berries originated in the Kalahari desert, believe it or not. The United States produces more than 40 million pounds of watermelons every year. Communities in 27 states and elsewhere in the world hold watermelon festivals annually (except this year and you know why) with queens crowned, seeds spitted competitively, and watermelon ice cream applied randomly on four-year old faces. We love our melons.
To tell if your watermelon is ripe, give it a respectful thump. A deep hollow thump is good. Accept no less. Inspect the ground spot on the bottom side to see if it has yellowed.
As you might expect, smarty-pants scientists with nothing else to do invented devices to test melons to see if they are sweet enough because that’s science. You and I can use a fork.