Picking the perfect watermelon isn’t as simple as saying “that one looks good!” and jumping in blindly. No, choosing the perfect watermelon is a skill. You’ve gotta inspect, weigh, and analyze to get the best of the bunch. These 5 tips will ensure you do, every single time.

5 Pro-Tips To Pick The Perfect Watermelon

1. Size. Look for uniform size. There’s a good chance that lumpy or dented watermelons will taste dry or inconsistent. No thanks.

2. Pick it up. No matter the size, a good watermelon should have some weight to it. This means that it’s full of water (shocking!).

3. Field spots. For the longest time, I called these sunspots, which I recently learned is not correct. Anyway, semantics aside, these spots are the big yellow/cream spots on a watermelon. This is where it sat on the ground and ripened. Basically the yellower the spot, the riper the watermelon.

4. Webbing. Look for those weblike/brown scratch-like spots. These mean that bees touched the pollinating parts of the flower many times, so brown scratches/spots mean more pollination, aka that the watermelon will likely be sweeter!

5. Check the tail. Does the watermelon have a tail? If so, make sure it’s dried – not green. If it’s green it means it was probably picked too soon and isn’t ripe enough. No one wants that.

A field spot.

Have any other tips for picking the perfect watermelon? Let us know! Comment on Facebook or tweet at us (@befreshlocal) – the more watermelon tips the better!