Yes, but shape is better indication. If they are plump they are mature and colour changes might not really mean anything in terms of maturity. All not plump seeds are white and are immature. So it’s more like very general rule so you avoid those that are completely immature, but you might also discard seeds that are completely viable. Which is fine if you have plenty of seeds. If fruits are more immature you might need to forget colour rule and identify those seeds that atleast aren’t ripe at all.
Depends on the variety. Ripe seeds can be anywhere from stark white to fully black, and in many colors. If you don’t have any white seeded varieties, you can certainly go by color.
Starting to shrivel on the vine, so I pulled it. In a few days I’ll break it open and see if there are any viable seeds.
And yes, this is a watermelon.
What a cool-looking watermelon! What variety is it (or if it’s a mix, do you know any of the likely ancestors)?
Look up Art Combe. It’s a variety that apparently developed in the deserts of the south-west, as a water carrier. The original has a long curving neck, like a handle, but over time that trait has almost been lost. The original also had red seeds and they’re very drought tolerant so I’m not surprised they’re struggling.
I don’t know what the pollen donor was. These seeds were a gift as part of a mixed population.
It is also apparently a long keeper, a matter of weeks rather than months but I’ll take what I can get.
*The common argument that this kind of shape is always the result of plant stress is a crock. The female flowers actually had this shape.
** And they’re popping off their stems, which is highly unusual for a watermelon.
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Wow! That sounds like a really neat variety!
I had one blow up last year and it looked kind of similar. I must have left it too long and I am guessing it fermented…
Also have heard of deer eating them, maybe that’s what got yours?
Slightly off topic as this is about a charentais melon, but I am super bummed as apparently the dried uo curly-q is definitely not a good indicator for ripeness on those. Picked one and cut it open and it smells…like a pumpkin 
It now has to go on the compost pile
It’s a melon. That dried up curly is for watermelons which is not a melon dispite it’s name. Melons don’t need any tricks to check their ripeness. The smell is so strong that there is no mistaking. When my melons start to ripen I can just smell the air to check if there are ripe melons. Also skin colour changes quite significantly. Don’t take note of the melons you see in stores. They are varieties that are fairly sweet before beak ripeness and so are picked well before they are actually ripe. If you had varieties that are like that you could do the same also although then you wouldn’t have good indicators besides time from flowering.
Not all melons give off aroma when ripe, which can make things hard. I’ve read that Sakata’s Sweet doesn’t, for instance, and that makes it really tricky to know when it’s at peak ripeness, so it’s really easy to harvest it too early or too late. Which is a pity, because apparently when it’s perfect, it’s incredibly tasty. I’m going to include it in my landrace, in the hope that I can get it to cross with other varieties that are clearer about when they’re ripe (and hopefully a little less finicky).
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I haven’t come across a melon that didn’t have a smell. I do have overly sensitive smell that makes it easier smell them. Some melons might spoil easily before they are fully ripe and so you might never get to the part when they start to smell. They still taste good and some even excellent well before that point so you just might never know what they are fully ripe. Based on this discription they do smell when ripe. Maybe it’s climate related that you can’t get the results like in their native areas.
That could be! I read in Amy Goldman’s The Melon that they don’t have a scent when they’re ripe, but I could easily see it being a climate-related variance. Or possibly a genetic variance within the variety!
I think people have been taught to expect certain things when melons in the shops are generally varieties that are sweet before peak ripeness. Time get’s long when you wait for them to ripen and they look just like the ones in the shops for weeks. I see it many times in local facebook groups when people pick melons based on what they have seen in the shops and often they are sweet enough to make them think it was ripe, but sometimes they pick it too soon and it’s not as good. Personally I try to use all melons I get so I have eaten them in many stages after they split and some of them are surprisingly good like way before they would ripen. I think I read somewhere that those store melons can be picked up to 10 days before they are fully ripe so there is definetely a big window to hit where you get sweet melons without ever getting to smell ripe melons.
If they’re slightly under or over ripe, make syrup.
I have used them fresh in salads if they are more sweet cucumber like or I simply dry them after ripening them indoors. Even the not so sweet get better after drying, although I would prefer them to be ripe. I don’t use sweeteners besides some stevia and rather keep it simple by having what I eat fresh, frozen or dried.
I got a great deal on watermelon seeds today at a gas station in Attalla, Alabama. The seed seller was so generous that for only $5, she included maybe 20 pounds of watermelon flesh at no extra cost!
I asked her where they get the watermelons. She gave me the name of a local man who sells them to the gas station. She said he cannot guarantee the color of the flesh. It could be red, yellow or orange. This leads me to believe it was grown by a local small farmer who grows several varieties in his field at the same time.
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That is a very nice find, congratulations.
