Water Melon Harvesting

Discussion in 'Fruit and Vegetable Gardening' started by Joey, Aug 22, 2006.

  1. Joey

    Joey Member

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    Hi Im new here I have about 5 small water melons in my garden they are of the "Sugar Baby" variety,but when will I know they are ready to harvest?Is there anyway you can tell?
     
  2. BelgiumChoco

    BelgiumChoco Member

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    The skin on your watermelons will hardened so that it can't be pentrated easily by a thumbnail. Thats when you know its ready too harvest. From what I have read it needs about 80-95 days.

    Good Luck!
     
  3. Durgan

    Durgan Contributor 10 Years

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    Deciding when to pick is very problematic. There are many rules of thumb, but all or most fail in the final analysis. In fact, the industry is in the process of developing an ultrasonic device to determine ripeness, since it is so important to them.

    Most of the store bought mellons are not fully ripened, but still eatable. One person told me in at some market in the Middle Eeast, when a truckload comes in, the buyer will throw several on the ground at random and if not ripe will refuse the load. The Middle East grows marvellous mellon, since they have the sun and proper temperature, all they need is to add water.
    Durgan.
     
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2006
  4. Joey

    Joey Member

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    Ok thanks...
     
  5. CONCHA5

    CONCHA5 Member

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    Hello there..I am a new member...I bought a SugarBaby watermelon from a local Zehrs this past Thursday, so that would have been Sept 14th. It was apparently grown in Ontario. This is the first time I had seen this kind in this store. I bought one with dark green skin which seemed healthy. Well!!! This has been the best, tastiest, wonderfully sweet watermelon I have ever tasted..what a treat. Joey, I hope yours are as successful.
     
  6. mjh1676

    mjh1676 Active Member Maple Society 10 Years

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    No good rules of thumb here. This is the first year we have grown watermelons and had quite good luck witht he Sugar Baby melons as the were very prolific producers. We also planted the Tiger Baby with he darker skin and did not have great luck. The full southern exposure has been great for our melon patch.

    In any case, I kept and eye on the calendar and at about 90 days their were many that were not quite ready so I left them on a while longer and eventually the stemps began to shirivel--either by way of the plant finally shutting down or some insect problems but at this time we picked all the watermelon. Except for a few that were undersized, all have been very tasty and juicy.

    Whether or not it is common for the stems on watermelon to shrivel I am not sure, but it seemed to work this year. I don't think we will plant watermelon again as it takes up quite a bit of room and we prefer many of the musk melons and would rather devote room to them.
     
  7. Eric La Fountaine

    Eric La Fountaine Contributor Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Host Alton Brown on the cooking show, Good Eats, did a program on melons. He claimed the way to determine if a watermelon is ripe is to look at the spot where the melon was sitting on the ground. The spot should be yellow. If it is white the melon is not ripe. I have tried this and it seems to be true, but the last melon I purchased was too ripe and there was no way to tell that (although that particular melon was extremely yellow.)
     
  8. Joey

    Joey Member

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    well Sugar Baby watermelons are quite small minature they dont really take up space in my garden!Infact they are the second smallest compared to the sweet peppers.THE TOMATOES ARE THE SPACE TAKERS never plant BEEF STAKE in a small graden I HAVE 14 PLANTS AND LOADS AND LOADS OF HUGE TOMATOES IM GIVING THEM AWAY!lol
     

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