"Pete E. Kruzer" wrote in message
oups.com...
I know there are some fruits that won't ripen after being picked. I
believe the cantalope and the watermelon are two of them.

Myth - Both cantalope and watermelon ripen after picking. I ripen them all
the time - as long as you define "ripen" as becoming sweeter and having more
fragrance. I ripened two cantalope last week.
Basically, all fruits ripen after picking if they have reached a certain
level of maturity but are yet "green" (past hard bitter but still fairly
acidic).

Basically, the plant stores food in the seed case as starch, starting the
case out as a small bitter case and gradually becoming less and less bitter.

Starch is not an attractant for most seed distribution vectors, but sugar
is.

The starch starts converting to sugar and esters once the seed case has been
separated from the plant's food supply, either by loss of the stem vitality
or by separation, then attracting animals as vectors for seed distribution.

All fruits do this.

I ripen grapes, pineapple, cantalope, bananas, tomatoes, etc. all the time.

I am hard pressed to think of a fruit that does not ripen after separation
from the food supply.

(Watermelon's "slow ripening" when quite immature is confused with "not
ripening", I think because it being a large fruit, it is easy to remove a
50-pounder-at-maturity at only 20 pounds and mistakenly think it had
developed enough to convert inb a reasonable time.
There is a point at which you pick a green fruit so far before natural
ripening that it will take forever to ripen. That said, it has been a
common practice in Minnesota gardens to pick really immature watermelon just
before the first frost and leave them on the counter, and have the flesh
turn pink several weeks after picking. )



Can anyone tell me fruits won't ripen after being picked?