watermelon season has arrived.

love it.
living in the north i dont get it all year unless i want to pay a huge price for some pre cubed crap.

the question is do you salt your watermelon?
for me this is the only way to go. if you have not tried it you must.

have you ever had it seared on the grill?
i have not tried that yet but this is the year.

of course for the drinking and cooking out types you hollow out a plug and fill it with hooch. every so often top it off.

a reply to: TinySickTears

Well let's make the best of it and discuss.

I for one, enjoy watermelon season.
What do you prefer, the standard tried and tested watermelon from when we were kids, or do you prefer the new seedless watermelons?

originally posted by: Macenroe82
a reply to: TinySickTears

Well let's make the best of it and discuss.

I for one, enjoy watermelon season.
What do you prefer, the standard tried and tested watermelon from when we were kids, or do you prefer the new seedless watermelons?

i love the seedless. not the mini seedless. those are like a cantaloupe. dont like those but legit seedless are the way to go.
with salt

Salt on watermelon is great ! Just as it is on cut up oranges and apples.

Watermelon is my favorite summer fruit because it is so thirst quenching.. but the quality around here has really dropped over the years. They seem very mealy .. maybe over ripe ?

a reply to: TinySickTears

Very rarely do I get a water melon in the grocery store that is worth a darn.

When I grow them at home, it is a much better tasting melon. I do have a hard time telling when they are ripe.

Mmmm delicious

a reply to: Macenroe82

I like the ones we used to get when I was growing up. Long huge ones from the South with big black seeds you could spit or pinch a mile. Today's corporate seedless melons injected with sugar juice are just okay for me.

Crimson Sweet for seedless, and Charleston Grey for seeded. I grew 15 acres a couple years ago, and would go to the field with my Bowie knife and cut a ripe one open and carve out the heart, or more precisely, the heart of the heart and toss the rest.. These were grown in North Carolina. After that year and so many hearts, I never touched a watermelon for another three years.

Crimson sweet are round, Charleston's oblong with serrated stripes. Hold in one hand and pop it with your two middle fingers for sound. You want a crisp pop, not a dull thud. Scratching the vine spot with your fingernail will give you some idea of what to expect by fragrance.

Enjoy

originally posted by: Plotus
Crimson Sweet for seedless, and Charleston Grey for seeded. I grew 15 acres a couple years ago, and would go to the field with my Bowie knife and cut a ripe one open and carve out the heart, or more precisely, the heart of the heart and toss the rest.. These were grown in North Carolina. After that year and so many hearts, I never touched a watermelon for another three years.

Crimson sweet are round, Charleston's oblong with serrated stripes. Hold in one hand and pop it with your two middle fingers for sound. You want a crisp pop, not a dull thud. Scratching the vine spot with your fingernail will give you some idea of what to expect by fragrance.

Enjoy

i knew it. i was going to say i hold it and give it a light kinda fast knock and listen for more of a hollow sound.

those are both seedless varieties?

Charleston has seeds, Crimson has undeveloped white seeds, that barely register as you chew, basically feeling non-existent.

All Seedless are really a misnomer, they have seeds that never developed basically. Often times you might never see them.

I think we'v all ate crispy apples and sort of not so crisp apples. Dull sound when thumping will likely give you an over ripe melon that has lost it's texture.

Kind'a like the mushy apples.

I met a person once that not only salts watermelon, but puts black pepper on it too.

I tried it, and it isn't bad.

Dam. Now I have to wait a whole year to taste watermelon with salt. We have just finished water melon season. Enjoy your summer y'all.

a reply to: butcherguy

No no no no!!!! Water melon should not have seasonings on it, I hated when my ex did that, the only exception allowed is, if one, poured a liberal amount of rum over chilled water melon..

I'll take the seeded watermelon any day over the seedless. They have more flavor. In the seedless ones, the seeds do not form and the chemistry of the seed gets left in the watermelon. Although I never was able to find if all the chemistry forms that is in the seeds, if it does, the watermelon would be possibly mildly toxic, I still do not like the taste of seedless ones. I have tried many types of them, to me the seeded ones are superior in taste.

I spent at least twenty hours total researching watermelon chemistry over the last eight years. Especially the growth and repair hormone they contain that is in the part most people toss out because it is not sweet enough for them. It is important to note though that too much of that growth and repair hormone is not that good either.

Watermelon is also high in some good amino acids. Like lycine and arganine and decent amounts of proline and glycine. They have some good effects on the body sometimes, but moderation should be observed. But, jello blows it away for these amino acids, so does bone broth made with a cartilaginous bone. But the jello and bone broth do not have the growth hormone.

originally posted by: TinySickTears

originally posted by: Plotus
Crimson Sweet for seedless, and Charleston Grey for seeded. I grew 15 acres a couple years ago, and would go to the field with my Bowie knife and cut a ripe one open and carve out the heart, or more precisely, the heart of the heart and toss the rest.. These were grown in North Carolina. After that year and so many hearts, I never touched a watermelon for another three years.

Crimson sweet are round, Charleston's oblong with serrated stripes. Hold in one hand and pop it with your two middle fingers for sound. You want a crisp pop, not a dull thud. Scratching the vine spot with your fingernail will give you some idea of what to expect by fragrance.

Enjoy

i knew it. i was going to say i hold it and give it a light kinda fast knock and listen for more of a hollow sound.

those are both seedless varieties?

Every time someone knocks on a watermelon, it gets sweeter. Just giving energy to it in a pulse will cause the conversion to sugar, it is very rapid, almost instantanious. If you kick the watermelon around the yard or drive before taking it in or smash it on the cement or a rock, it gets sweeter very fast as the sugars convert. I wouldn't roll it down the steps, it could make a mess. Keeping it in a plastic bag when kicking it down the driveway is best, you do not get any squirrel poop on it that way.

Nothing better than chilled melon with a dash of salt on it.

Need to find a big, thick rinded variety for making rind pickles.

a reply to: ketsuko

No salt Ketsuko, fresh or with rum , the way gwad intended it to be.

You really gotta try pickled watermelon bro, that stuff is amazing.
And yup, I salt my melon too.

a reply to: TinySickTears

I'm a watermelon lover here too my friend.

I even put forth the effort to grow them each year around this time when it gets hot. It's not easy. They need lots of sun, like all day long and plenty of water too. Healthy soil as well. But when you do it right you get a bunch of them. Big ol' juicy and sweet too. Some of the sweetest I've had have been my own grown.

I don't use salt myself. I've tried it, it's ok, but I like them without. But they have to be cold. Gotta chill that melon down in the fridge real good first.

You should also try a Yellow Flesh Watermelon too if you get the chance. They're a bit more rare and hard to find but good. Very sweet. There are also orange flesh watermelon too. I haven't had a chance to try them yet but hopefully whenever I can find or grow one some day.

In the summer heat nothing beats a nice chilled melon!!!