I happened to notice on Monday that one of the ‘Little Baby Flower’ Watermelons was cracked, and it looked nice and ripe (from what I could see through the nylon stocking). Yesterday, we picked the cracked melon and after some thought and thumping (which is not the recommended way to gauge ripeness), I decided to pick the largest watermelon as well and see if it was ripe. We also ended up picking one of the ‘Snow Leopard’ Honeydew Melons.

This is obviously the cracked watermelon. It was a pretty fresh crack Monday morning, but by yesterday the ants had swarmed like crazy. You can see the bigger one in the background, still in its stocking.

This is the bigger melon. It was fairly good sized…maybe 10″ long?

Yum! I could tell from the way it cut open that it was really ripe. Luckily, it wasn’t overripe. This is a seeded variety, obviously. The rind is very thin, which is probably one of the reasons the other one cracked. It was very sweet and delicious!

This is the ‘Snow Leopard’ Honeydew Melon. Yes, the green spots and flecks are supposed to be there. The skin has clearly changed from being more green hued to more creamy hued.

Yes, the flesh is supposed to be white. We apparently have an aversion to choosing green fleshed honeydew melon varieties. (Last year we had an orange fleshed honeydew.) The flavor was good, but I wouldn’t call it spectacular. I think the sweetness was probably diluted by all the rain and that it may not have been perfectly ripe. Or maybe the variety is just not super sweet?

We have harvested at least one of all the melons now, except for the ‘Honey Bun’ cantaloupes, which were planted late. The ‘Yellow Mini Tiger’ melons we haven’t gotten a ripe one yet, but they seem to fall off the vine early. They are probably too heavy to be suited for the trellis system, especially if they don’t get supported early.