tom

I think perhaps you were a little impatient. Sounds like it wasn't ripe. The brown tendril method has worked well for me. A watermelon stem will not slip. Neither will the skin slip, if that is what you were saying.

The fruitnut

thanks fru, yeah I was saying slippage of stem and skin because I read things pointing to each of them hoping to learn from others observations.

tomatozilla:

Like fruitnut, I also depend primarily on the brown tendril method, backed up by the yellow bottom method. But I mean really brown, dried up tendril. I agree that you jumped the gun with your yellow doll. Read the seed packet when you plant. It will usually give the days to harvest (I think yellow doll is about 75-80), and when you approach the indicated number that is the time to begin checking for the indicators.

Stem slippage is for cantaloupes, which is quite a different melon. I recently learned stem slippage doesn't even work for honeydew melons. But I don't grow honeydews.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Thanks Don. I would really like to keep an "accounting" of what was productive when and did it really produce as much as fast or faster than I'd bargained for, and am working to eliminate the distractions that have prevented that these last few seasons. Meanwhile, several days of scrutiny later I see no dried tendrils on melon brethren and am more convinced the melon was unripe.