Why YSK: These tips may help you pick a more ripe, juicier, sweeter watermelon.
This is all good info except for the gender thing. The round/long difference is just a growth habit. Watermelon plants (and other cucurbits like squash, zucchini, cantaloupe, etc) produce male and female flowers. Only the female flowers produce fruit and must be pollinated by a male flower to do so.
Was about to post this. There is a fact check here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/04/26/fact-check-false-claim-male-and-female-watermelons/7366708001/ No such thing as male or female watermelons.
So if I’m getting the info correct: the uglier the melon, the better it will taste
Probably because beautiful melons had it easy, while the ugly melons had to work on their personality and talent to make up for the shunning they got from the melon community. Big Melon always presents attractive melons on media, making it harder for ugly melons.
#UglyMelonsTasteBetter
its whats inside that matters… you dont eat the rind
well… you dont
Finally, Lemmy has reached peak Reddit quality shitposting.
I salute you, person.
Awesome, thank you for the info! Always learn something new on lemmy.
Also the webbing would vary between varieties.
Also I doubt there’s much variation in “ground spot” color.
Where’s the part where you slap it?
That’s between you and the watermelon, leave me out of your racy play.
This was bullshit the first 2000 times it was posted to reddit and it’s still bullshit here.
Show us on the watermelon where the internet hurt you
<shows pale, tasteless spot>
I just roll my eyes at it now.
FYI there is no reliable way to tell if a watermelon is ripe after it is harvested. The most reliable indicator is the tendril on the node the peduncle is attached to. When it is fully dry, the fruit is ready.
This is one of those things that I’ll save and then never use.
Even on lemmy people still aren’t bothering to fact check things. Disappointing.
Okay how can I tell which watermelon 🍉 is best for insertion ???
The markets where I buy are confident enough in their product that they cut the one you want to taste before you buy. I’ve never found a more reliable method than that.
sir this is a wal-mart
Anyone know where I can find those sweet and juicy webbed females?
Um… Florida?
Bradford Watermelons was always my favorite. We’d get all sorts from them, but the watermelons would make it to the tasting menu.
https://bradfordwatermelons.com/
They also sold green runner peanuts before the pandemic.
Morgan Freeman taught me to flick melons to determine the ripeness in Unleashed, and I have honed the skill to a masterful level. Get weird looks from strangers sometimes tho…
Sounds like a great way to get sick or spread sickness.
Maybe if you’re Immuno-compromised, have bad hand hygiene practices, or go around people when you’re sick.
going around licking public display foods is bad hygiene practices tbh.
You should maybe go back and read the post again you’re complaining about…
ah shit, I didn’t see the f on my small laptop monitor with border buffers for anonymity when I made that comments- whoops >.>
That’s actually pretty funny.
Good thing no one is advocating that.
This infographic brought to you by someone selling gnarly watermelons.
I’ll just remember “pick the most fucked up looking melon with patchy orange spots and ugly crisscross webbing”. It’s probably not going to make the photo reel but it’ll taste good.
The ugly ones usually taste better, just check that the ugliness isn’t caused by molds
in general I find this to be true with most fruits, the uglier the better. Those pretty shiny apples are shit.
The ones with worms are sweeter cause worms can choose better than humans.
Yep. Extra protein too
Oddly, I can tell exactly how an apple will taste just by touching it. Shiny smooth apples are usually soft/mushy and have no taste. You want a rough texture with a little grip.
Ugliness is correlated with age, and ripeness is correlated with age, so ugliness and ripeness would at the very least be spuriously correlated.
This is horse shit
Nah, I’m just going to continue doing what I’ve always done: tapping the watermelon to hear the sound and pretend that I know what I’m doing.
YSK: Nonbinary watermelons are even better than male and female watermelons, but they’re pretty rare so they tend to command a high price
In my family we just slap the watermelons
Don’t be melon dramatic
What did they do to your family?
That is non of our business do what you like
Idk man you do you, but I prefer eating them
The fuck is a “male” plant ovary?
When I see nonsense like this, I then distrust the entire YSK.
Yaaa the whole gendered fruit thing I will never understand
I dont know about watermelons but there are a plethora of plants that can not produce fruit without being pollinated by another plant. Also if you ever self pollinate a plant you’ll have to recognize the 2 different parts. Is it just the calling them male/female that bothers you? Edit: I guess I should say plants/flowers can have a sex, fruits I don’t think would. They are just seed dispersers I believe.
Hmm I’m no plant expert, so maybe I’m wrong about this but I thought fruit always grows after pollen moves to an egg like part of the flower/plant, so the ‘sex’ of the fruit is always a combined pollen+egg like cell. This cell develops into a seed while the surrounding plant grows the fruit for various reasons. Maybe there is a heterozygous genetic trait in some plants where we could label the individual as sex A or B, but I thought self pollinating plants were basically both sexes at the same time??? Idk… Maybe I should do some googling but heck the fediverse needs content :P
The scientific definition of “fruit” is the ripened ovary of a flowering plant. This differs from the normal usage so some things not commonly considered fruit, such as tomatoes and the pods of soybeans, are fruits by this definition. Flowering plants (not all plants have flowers) have male and female anatomical structures. Many species have both structures in one flower. Some species have flowers that contains either male or female structures. These flowers can either be on the same plant (monoecious), like watermelon and corn, or on different plants (diecious), like papaya. The ovary, what will become the fruit, is a female anatomical structure, and it makes no sense to talk about a male fruit for any type of flower. Male flowers produce pollen, which fertilizes the embryo in an ovary, but male flowers themselves don’t produce fruit.
I worked at a grocery store and the old timer who trained me in the produce section said that all you needed to find the best watermelon was learn how to give it a slap and if it sounds like a basketball that’s a good watermelon. Learning the slap takes some practice but when you do it right, you’ll know.
