How do you tell if a watermelon is ripe?

[Herbgardener]

This year we found a lot of volunteer watermelons in our yard so we planted them in our garden. Well now we have a problem. We calculated as best as we could the time until they would be ripe by a seed package. We picked the first one. It was very large and looked good. It also sounded hollow. It was not fully ripe. It was good enough to eat but not great. How do we tell when they are ripe?
Thanks!

 

[boggybranch]

When the "curl" closest to the stem end is dead....it's ready.

 

[vfem]

Yes, wait until the stem at the end is quitting and pulling away from the fruit. Usually one gentle nudge of your finger and the vine just pops off the fruit works for us.

 

[sparkles2307]

yeah we wait till they "slip" and then they're perfect. the melons I grow are never very big but are so juicy they explode when I first break the skin with the knife. I follow the "slip" rule for all melons.

 

[Herbgardener]

Thanks everyone!