JFP

And the price was two to three cents a pound.

Our Gang

You should look for female watermelons. Those are the ones that are rounder. The longer ones are male. Believe it or not. I used to deliver melons for a wholeseller. Here in San Jose, CA we can buy 10 pounders for $1.99 on sale at this time of year.

josquin1 Loc: Massachusetts

Back in the 1950s my dad and i would go to the local A&P and pick out the best watermelon which was at least 2 feet long. I think they cost something like 50 cents.

Timmers Loc: San Antonio Texas.

Poor Jerry.

At my local HEB* (big grocery store), we can get basket ball watermelons that are about $3.50 that people by and sliced up watermelons for the lazy people. For a bit less than $8 you can get a huge long watermelon for under that $8. If you have any brains one buys that watermelon about a week in advance, park it outside like I do and let it ripen till it is almost too sweat in the Texas heat.

Of course, if you are driving outside San Antonio and happen by a guy selling watermelon out of the back of a pick up truck beside the Darm to Market Road (designated FM 000), (and you are wondering if the guy is a farmer, that beat up pick up truck is actually from a farm, just look at the license plate and see if it says "FARM" in the middle.), take out $2 and offer it to him or his kid and you will get a great watermelon (I always hand them the other $3 because this is the food for their table money).

You just aren't in a place that has watermelon.

And if your wondering about the strawberries, there up the road about 45 minutes in Poteet Texas, that is where the super sweet, huge ones come from, and they are great.

* Thank you Charles Butt (owner of HEB and his family) for all that you do for us here in Texas and Mexico.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Doesn't sound right to me. Some plants have male and female flowers, but the fruit is the child of the female flower. Male flowers produce only pollen. And melons are probably not the type of plant that differentiates its flowers. (Squash have male and female flowers and the male flowers come out first and have a longer stem, but melons are not in the squash family. When you have squash blossoms served to you at a restaurant, they are most likely from the male flowers because the female flowers produce the squash that is worth more than the flower. Of course you need both to produce the fruit, but since the male flowers precede the female flowers by about a week they can be harvested without impacting the crop).

Delivering wholesale melons doesn't make you a botanist any more than delivering lumber makes you a carpenter.

Disclaimer: I never studied botany in school. What I know comes from observation, error and trial on the farm. And when I became a farmer, I raised the average age of farmers in the United States.

Lucasdv123

A long time ago I met a man who was stationed in japan. he would buy 2 lb steaks at the BX and would invite his Japanese friends over but they wouldn't eat them.as soon as he started bringing watermelons from the BX he had them eating out of his hand.

Soul Dr. Loc: Beautiful Shenandoah Valley

Never was a big fan of watermelon. I prefer a nice ripe cantalope.

Will

Tom467 Loc: North Central Florida

The paper bag trick also works for for persimmons. I am lucky because paper bags are available at our grocery store. An alternative is purchase large paper trash bags at the local big box store. I pick my persimmons just before they get ripe and place them in paper bags and they are ripe within a few days. If I let them get ripe on the tree the birds beat me to them.

Tom

paulrph1 Loc: Washington, Utah

They will soften but not get anymore flavor or sugars. They have to be left on the tree for that. They simply pick to young for that to happen.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

This is a nice way to slice one for a group. It's an easy and neat way to handle and eat.

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

That is a good-looking melon -- plenty of yellow which shows it was left on the vine to ripen well. It would be very sweet and delicious. Nice job cutting it as well. Those pieces can be eaten like a push-pop.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

That's an online picture, but mine looked similar.

Mr. SONY Loc: LI, NY

Seeded watermelons taste better.
And how does having hundreds of white seeds count as being seedless?

BebuLamar

Any way where I am from (Vietnam) the watermelons are always round and not long.

mikee

Peaches and pears are picked green, so they can be sorted, boxed, and shipped without bruising. Once home, however, they all seem to ripen in the same hour.