We enjoyed our second – and final – watermelon from the garden last night.

Trust me – I sighed a big sigh of relief when I saw that it was ripe and had not yet gone to sugar!

So how did I know when to pick it?

I followed my friend Martha’s example – I thumped it. 🙂

Now I’ve thumped many a grocery store melon pretending to know what I was doing – in hopes of bringing home a good one. But they all sounded the same.

So when Martha thumped my first melon and proclaimed it done – I thumped it too. Then I thumped this melon that was smaller. I could hear the difference. The ripe melon sounded hollow – or full of water and echo-ey. The non-ripe melon sounded dull and full.

The reason I could never hear the difference in the grocery store melons was because all of those melons were ripe. I was trying to thump them to find a good tasting one – which doesn’t work.

I’ve been thumping this guy for more than a week now – just waiting for that hollow – echo-ey sound.

The stem was still green and attached and the bottom of the melon still looked white – but I heard that echo, so I picked it. Thankfully it was ripe and tasty. The thump test worked again!

So am I now a  “thumping” expert? Not even close!

Right now I’m just wishing for a few more watermelons on my plants so I can practice my newly-discovered knowledge!

Happy thumping!