When is a melon really ripe?

Content

• When is a melon really ripe?
• The different melon varieties and their signs of maturity
• Recognize a ripe watermelon
• Preserve ripe melons properly
• Tips & Tricks

When is a melon really ripe?

When fully ripe, melons can only be kept for about one to three weeks at room temperature, which is why they are often harvested early in the countries of origin. There are some tricks to recognize the maturity of a melon from the outside.

Early article planting melons in your own garden

The different melon varieties and their signs of maturity

Not all melon varieties are equally well recognized as ripe or immature. Of course, this is easier with melons grown on their own, where the dying of plant parts in late summer or autumn indicates the harvest time of the fruits. Incidentally, this complete dying of the plant is also the reason why even sweet honeydew melons do not belong scientifically to the fruit but to the vegetables. In many sweet melons such as the honeydew melon and the Charentais melon, the peel shows insufficient maturity. However, you can distinguish the ripest fruits by their higher weight from immature specimens. In addition, fully ripe sugar melons exude a slightly sweet, slightly perfumed fragrance and can be easily pressed in with strong pressure with your fingers. A clear sign of overripe fruits is when the stem approach is brown or black discolored.

Recognize a ripe watermelon

If you want to identify a watermelon in the garden or in the supermarket as ripe, you can rely on a combination of optical and acoustic test. Ripe fruits of the common varieties Crimson Sweet and Sugar Baby have a rather muffled sound when touched by hand. In the color of the peel, it depends on the variety whether the green watermelon is covered with net-like, yellowish stripes. A yellow spot on the support is an unmistakable sign that the fruit was allowed to fully ripen on the plant.

Preserve ripe melons properly

A ripe melon can be kept at room temperature for about one to three weeks, depending on the type and timing of the harvest. Thereafter, the following options are possible for storage:

Tips & Tricks

Since all melons are rather mushy when frozen and thawed again, this storage method is only suitable for the preparation of smoothies or other uses in pureed form.

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