The ripeness of a watermelon can affect its sweetness.
Learn to spot sweet watermelons at the grocery store, or grow your own using expert gardening tips. Watermelon slices make quick and juicy low-calorie summer snacks. They're also good for you, being naturally high in vitamins A and C. Serve watermelon chilled, freezing any extra chunks for later use in smoothies, slushies and sorbets. Don't forget to save the rinds for making watermelon pickles.
Watermelon Shopping Tips
When looking for sweet watermelons at the grocery store, choose only firm fruits that feel heavy for their size and are free from cuts or bruises. For the best indication of a watermelon's ripeness and sweetness, look at the yellow patch where the fruit rested on the ground as it grew. A creamy-colored yellow patch shows the melon ripened in the sun. White or green-colored patches indicate the fruit's not ripe and was been harvested too early; watermelons don't continue to ripen after they've been picked. You can also rap a watermelon with your knuckles. Listening for the characteristic flat or dead sound is an unreliable indicator of condition, according to University of Illinois Extension experts, because over-ripe melons also make this sound.
Watermelon Harvesting Tips
Grow watermelons at home to pick the fruits at the optimum time for sweetness, when fully ripe. Growers harvest their watermelons when they see certain signs. First, they examine the tendril on the opposite side of the vine to the melon. If it's dried out and brown, the watermelon's ripe for picking. The second sign of a watermelon's ripeness is the color changing on the spot where it rests on the ground. This patch turns from white to greenish-yellow, then finally yellow, when ripe. Third, the watermelon's skin changes texture from shiny to dull when it's ready to harvest.
Watermelon Seed Tips
Mainstream sweet watermelons include the medium-sized and disease-resistant Sugarlee, a melon with extremely sweet red flesh. Try seedless Snack Pack and compact Sugar Baby for sweet, red-fleshed watermelons with shorter growing seasons for northern regions. For an unusual watermelon plant, try rare heirloom watermelons. Moon and Stars is a small heirloom watermelon that dates from before 1926. They possess very sweet, pink flesh and the distinctive starry markings of this melon's name. Sweet Siberian is an early-season heirloom variety originating from Russia with yellow flesh and medium-sized fruits, and Will's Sugar is a small and hardy watermelon with pink, sweet flesh. It ripens in 80 days and dates from 1888. Larger heirloom varieties include Kleckley's Sweet, a very crisp, sweet watermelon with white seeds.
Watermelon Growing Tips
Watermelons usually need long, hot summer days and warm temperatures at night to reach their peak of sweetness. Southerners can grow most varieties of watermelon, but Northerners must use early-season varieties and transplant the watermelons. Covering the ground with black plastic sheeting warms the soil up to promote faster growth. Floating row covers also warm the soil, as well as give protection from unexpected cold snaps. Watermelons fail to produce sweet fruit due to cool temperatures, wilting vines and high rainfall. Water intensively and deeply for three to four weeks, or until fruits are set, then use a drip irrigation system. This method guards against over-watering, which dilutes a watermelon's sweetness.
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