You're listening to the Beginners Garden podcast. I'm Jill McShehehehe with Journey Withjil.net,

and my goal is to give beginning gardeners the tools they need to grow a rewarding, productive garden. Hey guys. I hope you're doing great today in this middle of July. You know, is there anything

better than eating fresh melons in the height of the summer?

Well, actually, there is something better than eating fresh melons. It's growing them and eating

them. But if there's one question I get asked quite a bit this time of year, whether it's

personally in an email or in our Facebook group, The Beginners Garden

Shortcut, is how do I know when my melons are ripe? Whether you're growing cantaloupe or watermelon,

it's a big question. And it's one you want to get right, especially if you're gardening in a small

space and maybe you're just going to have a few melons that season.

You don't want to harvest them too soon and you don't want to wait until they're overripe

and harvest them too late. So in today's episode, I'm going to be talking to you about the

basics of how you can know whether your cantalopes or watermelons are ready to harvest.

Before we get started talking about how to know whether your cantalopes or watermelons are ready to harvest. Before we get started talking about how to know

whether your cantalopes or watermelons are ready to harvest, I feel like we need to take a step

back and make sure you know about the basic flower structures of these fruits. Canaloupe and

watermelon are both members of the Cucurbit family, which is the same family as cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, that kind of thing.

So when I talk to you about the flowers and their structures and the purposes here, you can also apply it to the other vegetables as well.

What you're going to see when you're growing cantaloupe or watermelon is at the

beginning stages of its growth, the male flowers are going to be populating that plant in earnest.

You can tell a male flower from a female flower because the male flower does not have a little

fruit at its base, whereas the female flower will.

A lot of people get concerned because all they see on their plants, whether that's one of

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