What is the most difficult & easiest fruit for you to select for quality?

>>>watermelon

A couple of summers ago, I grew watermelons for the first time and had a tough time telling when they were ripe.  Ended up wth a lot of "artisanal" white watermelon.

I once found a HUGE avocado at a market in Hawaii and was stoked until I opened it up and found it was about 90% pit.

Watermelon - when the dirt side turns from white to yellow.

Unless you have a huge number of plants and know your shit I don't suggest growing watermelon.

>>>>when the dirt side turns from white to yellow.

Yep.  That's what I learned.  There is also a little wiggly tendril thing near the stem.  When that becomes dry, its another sign the watermelon is ready.  We actually did pretty well the next season on picking them when they were ripe.  

Speaking of melons, we planted the Minnesota Midget melon last year and it did great.   Its a prolific and ridiculously sweet miniature cantaloupe. 

I'll have to check out the MM this upcoming season Ken. Cantaloupe grows well here but not as good as I remember from tending my parents and grandparents gardens as a kid.

Easy -banana Hard - pineapple

easiest (after bananas): canteloupe/muskmelon....it should smell good.   :)

hardest: peaches..xxxxxxxxxxxx yyyyyyyyyy zzzzzzzz       had to stop writing after three tries.

I've had bad luck with avocados lately...  I usually buy before they're ripe (when that woody piece on the end falls off), but they've either been bruised (all that public groping), or very stringy!  I grew up in southern Cal, so use to local avocado trees.  One friend's beagles would eat them, got so fat, they needed a roller skate under them so they could walk.  They ultimately had to fence the tree / fall area off from the poor little munchers...  

then there's this...

Guacamole (El Kabong Orchestra doing a Texas Tornadoes cover)  Squirrels Anniversary Party, Adair Park, Oregonia, 9-2-07

https://soundcloud.com/andy-baugh-1/guacamole-el-kabong

 

 

Damn Druba, that looks a lot like what I found in the giant avocado I got in Hawaii that I mentioned above.

Avocados can be real tricky.  Seems like one day, they are hard as a rock and the next day, they turn to brown mush.

Passion.

My cousin's kids wife is from Panama, makes a great Guacamole!  She uses the standard Lime, tomato, some red onion, but will add just one or 2 cilantro leaves, one clove of garlic, and one small jalapeno, all diced up extremely fine, so you really don't taste any of them outright...  yummy! 

 

cool thread 

Easy - apple

Difficult - jackfruit 

 

edit - I did not see “to select for quality”.

my answer pertains to prep/eating of said fruit

lol

I just gave up on strawberries

lol

 

>I just gave up on strawberries

 

I haven't had a decent strawberry in many years.

I had killer luck with a few everbearing strawberry plants this year. They were still alive and fruiting after the first frost. I took one inside that I keep picking the flowers off before it starts to bear fruit and the plant keeps sprouting new shoots. I'm gonna cut a bunch of clones from her and look forward to getting them outside in the spring.

>>>I haven't had a decent strawberry in many years

 

seriously?

lol

Yeah, really can’t find any strawberries around here.

Seriously.

 

You can find them, Timpane,  but they're lousy

Bummer. 

Sure is, Slack, I miss a good strawberry.

Pomegranate