Warm nights bring fruit
A Pepino melon can bloom wonderfully in spring. However, the flowers are no guarantee of delicious fruit. This is not due to a lack of fertilization, because the plant can pollinate itself. Wind and insects also play an active role.
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Fruits only set if the melon plant is warm enough at night. It has to be warmer than 18 degrees Celsius for several nights in a row.
It is also important to give the plant the sunniest part of the garden. If it grows in a pot, it just has to have a sunny corner of the balcony.
Long ripening period, late harvest
After fertilization, the pear melon, as this plant is also called, takes 90 days to produce fruits that are around 20 cm long and weighing around 300 grams. Accordingly, the harvest time does not fall until late summer.
The harvest can also extend into early autumn. And if the outside temperature is below 10 degrees early in autumn and the plant is already in its winter quarters, the harvest continues there.
Recognize maturity
If the Pepino melon has been cultivated for several years, recognizing the ripeness is certainly child's play. At the beginning, however, the degree of maturity is still a book with seven seals. We reveal the secret:
- the fruit must smell sweet
- the color should have changed
- sometimes yellow, sometimes light green with purple vertical stripes, depending on the variety
- the fruit should be soft and give way slightly when pressed
Tips
If the fruit enchants you with the aromas of a pear and a melon at the same time, you have precisely matched the optimal degree of ripeness.
Let the pepinos ripen
Pepino melons harvested green have not grown in vain. You can ripen. Let the fruits sit for a few days at room temperature. If you want it to go even faster, add an apple. It produces the ripening gas ethylene, which also shows its effect in the Pepino.
