I have heard the same thing, but that has never been my experience. The only plants that I have seen do this are determinates, which ripen the whole crop at once. But since I don’t know for sure, I pick the seed just before full ripeness and allow it to finish ripening inside.
Thanks! I’ll have to try that next year.
Luckily, unless it’s our ducks or goose getting into things, my hubs is on board with not eating the first anything/leaving it on the vine. No signs, strings, or whatnot needed. 
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I’ve heard all Squashes are techically perennial, it’s just energy spent on making the ripe fruit make the plant susceptible to disease. I wonder if it translates into Cucumbers?
Yea it’s a good method & I’d probably do the same altho I’m super curios on how Fully Ripe Cucumbers taste like. Something tells me they taste better fully ripe when the Seeds are mature.
WHAT!? Cucumbers can do that? They can ripen their fruit off the vine? I know Squash can do this but Cucumbers!? I’ve heard watermelons are not capable of ripening off vine, is this true? What about Muskmelons? I’ve heard they can at least get their seeds viable enough to germinate & grow.
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I don’t know about ripening fruit off the vine, since I’ve never tried to eat the ripe cucumbers. Ripen their seeds, absolutely.
Personally I tend to question things until I have tried them for myself. “Common knowledge” is seldom true. Even some studies are full of fallacies, and anything that generalizes (“all x do this thing by process y, therefore process y is the only way to do thing” which is the common argument againt watermelons ripening that way) seriously discounts the variability of nature.
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AWESOME! That’s a super useful trait. Have you noticed the days to matuirty of your Cucumbers go down when you’ve only saved seeds from immature, ripened off-the-vine fruits? I think @Joseph_Lofthouse has his Squash Mature sooner because the frost caused him to harvest the fruits pre-maturely. Could something like this be done Intentionally to breed earlier ripening varieties & reduce days to maturity required? I’d love to make Watermelons mature faster with this trick.
Yea, I wonder if it’s a genetic thing? Maybe some watermelons varieties have the genes to allow ripening differently, like off vine. I’ve heard lots of gardeners say watermelons won’t continue ripening off vine & stressed how important it was to pick them ripe. I wonder, won’t at least the seeds continue ripening off vine? It’s nice to have some universal basic rule of thumb cuz it really helps me grasp the concept.
I know from my own experience that watermelons have the ability to stress-ripen, and given bad conditions they will cannibalize most of their seeds in order to bring a few to full viability. Some varieties also seem to grow hermaphrodite flowers under stress.
All of which says that the plants have some way of controlling ripening.
I think the problem comes in both defining “ripe” and not being able to gauge ripeness without breaking open the melon. I wonder about those varieties that turn gold at full ripeness. Maybe they could be used for a test.
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Very interesting, first time hearing this about seed cannibalization so that a few may survive! Do other Gourd crops like melons & Squash do the same? Of course it depends on how unripe you pick it. I just rememebr how @UnicornEmily picked a Zuccinni x Spagehtti Squash hybrid Green (After 2 weeks on vine) and it managed to ripen fully off vine after a long time.
I’ve seen this, I thought it was dependent on the genetics of the particular variety, perhaps the stress determines how much the hermaphrodite flowers trait gets expressed? Surely there are some cultivars that no mater how much stress you give them, simply refuse to make hermaphrodite flowers.
I think this right here was what you meant?
It appears they can also be bisexual which is different from Hermaphrodite flowers. I think this would be a useful trait for those times when you only have female flowers but no males & vice versa. Would it make controlled crosses more difficult tho?
Time to determine what ripe is! Without breaking the watermelon. Some varieites actually snap open when slightly touched to let you know it’s ripe (Which kind of defeats the point 
). Those Golden Varieites are easy, but is every golden variety like this? What about the moon & stars cultivar, is it ripe when it gets the “Moon & Stars” on it’s skin or no? I’ve also heard both tendrils have to be withered brown, the skin a bit dull & if grown on soil, the belly spot yellow with even dark sugar spots.
I’ve noticed the the sound trick is pointless, I once picked a very hallow sounding watermelon it was unripe. Is the peduncle a good trait to determine ripeness? I know some muskmelons have the peduncle slip off when ripe, does watermelon do that too? is there a problem picking it over-ripe?