Beginner Gardening: When to pick watermelon?, 1 by Farmerdill

Farmerdill wrote:
Nope regular cantaloupes slip (turn loose from the vine) when ripe. exotics like charantais, some honeydews, most spanish melons, you have to judge by color change. As for the watermelon the actual stem stays green, the indicator is the tendral next to the stem. The old folks called it the the curl and Used "when the curl is dead as one indicator". It is not foolproof, some varieties like Sugar Baby, Black Diamond, Florida Giant seem to have the tendral dry prematurely.