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shares practical tips to help you choose the freshest, sweetest, and highest-quality fruit every time you shop.
You'll learn how to identify ripe fruit by looking at its color, texture, aroma, and weight, along with common mistakes many shoppers make. Whether you're buying apples, peaches, melons, berries, avocados, citrus, or other fresh produce, these simple techniques can help you make better choices.
In this video:
How to tell if fruit is ripe
Signs of fresh, high-quality produce
Common fruit-buying mistakes to avoid
Tips for choosing sweeter and juicier fruit
How to make your fruit last longer at home
If you enjoy gardening, healthy eating, and practical food tips, don't forget to Like, Subscribe, and turn on notifications for more helpful videos.
#Fruit #HealthyEating #FreshProduce #Gardening #FoodTips #Farmers #GroceryShopping #KitchenTips #HealthyLiving #FruitPicking
shares practical tips to help you choose the freshest, sweetest, and highest-quality fruit every time you shop.
You'll learn how to identify ripe fruit by looking at its color, texture, aroma, and weight, along with common mistakes many shoppers make. Whether you're buying apples, peaches, melons, berries, avocados, citrus, or other fresh produce, these simple techniques can help you make better choices.
In this video:
How to tell if fruit is ripe
Signs of fresh, high-quality produce
Common fruit-buying mistakes to avoid
Tips for choosing sweeter and juicier fruit
How to make your fruit last longer at home
If you enjoy gardening, healthy eating, and practical food tips, don't forget to Like, Subscribe, and turn on notifications for more helpful videos.
#Fruit #HealthyEating #FreshProduce #Gardening #FoodTips #Farmers #GroceryShopping #KitchenTips #HealthyLiving #FruitPicking
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00We have all stood there in the fruit aisle, or at the market stand, holding a watermelon or a cantaloupe
00:06in our two hands, turning it over, giving it a knock, a sniff, a little squeeze, and honestly, not quite
00:14knowing what we are looking for.
00:16We do it because we have seen others do it, this little ritual, but if you asked us plainly what
00:22a good knock sounds like, or what a good smell tells us, most of us could not rightly say.
00:30And so, we take our chances, and half the time we get home and cut into a pale, watery, tasteless
00:37thing and feel cheated.
00:39Well, it need not be a matter of luck. The old farmers and the market folk have always known exactly
00:47what to look for.
00:49Plain signs any fruit will show you if you know how to read them.
00:53And today, I am going to teach you those signs, for the four great fruits of summer, so you never
01:00bring home a bad one again.
01:03My name is Elias Yoder, and I farm here in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania.
01:09And these are not just tricks for the store. These are the very same signs I read in my own
01:16patch to know when a melon is ready to cut from the vine, the same signs my grandmother read at
01:23the market stand her whole life.
01:25I can see her yet, at the summer market when I was a boy, moving down a whole table of
01:31melons quick as anything, tipping each one to look at its belly, giving a knock, a heft, and setting most
01:39of them right back down until she found the one.
01:43And she was never wrong. The man selling them used to shake his head and laugh and say she picked
01:50his table clean of the best ones before anyone else got a look.
01:55She did not have a single trick he did not have. She just knew to look, and most folks never
02:02learned to.
02:04A ripe fruit tells you it is ripe, in its color, and its weight, and its smell, and even its
02:11sound, if you will only learn its language.
02:15So let me teach you to read it.
02:18Before I go on, I will say this once and then leave it be.
02:22I gathered the whole of it, all these old ways of growing and choosing your own food, into a book.
02:30You can find it at EliasYoder.com
02:34The book is the long version. If you want it, it is there. I will not mention it again.
02:41Let us begin with the watermelon, the king of summer.
02:46And there are four signs to read on it.
02:49And if you learn these four, you will pick a sweet one near every time.
02:54The first and the best sign is the field spot.
02:58Turn the melon over and look at its underside, and you will find a pale patch where it lay on
03:05the ground while it grew.
03:07Every watermelon has one.
03:09And the color of that patch is the surest thing there is.
03:13On a melon that hung on the vine and ripened good and full, that field spot will be a rich,
03:21creamy, buttery yellow, sometimes near orange.
03:25That deep, golden spot means the melon had its full time in the sun and is sweet.
03:32But if that field spot is pale, white, near greenish, put the melon down, for that means it was picked
03:40too soon before it ripened, and it will be watery and bland.
03:45Creamy yellow, take it, white, leave it.
03:50That one sign alone will save you more bad melons than all the rest.
03:56The second sign is the webbing, those rough, brown, quirky lines and speckles you sometimes see on the skin.
04:05Folks think that is a blemish.
04:07It is not.
04:09That webbing is the scar left where the bees touched and pollinated the flower.
04:14And the more the flower was pollinated, the sweeter and better the fruit.
04:19So a melon with a good deal of that brown webbing is a melon the bees loved, and it will
04:26very likely be sweeter for it.
04:29Do not shy from a webbed melon.
04:32Choose it.
04:32The third sign is the size, and the plain wisdom here is to choose a melon of average size, not
04:41the greatest giant on the pile, nor the littlest runt, for the middling ones tend to be the best and
04:48truest.
04:49And here I must gently set you straight on an old saying you may have heard, that there are boy
04:55watermelons and girl watermelons, the tall ones being boys and watery, the round ones being girls and sweet.
05:04It is a charming old tale, and you will hear it repeated as gospel, but the plain truth is, a
05:11watermelon is neither boy nor girl, it has no such thing, and the shape is mostly just the variety it
05:18is.
05:19So do not fret over the shape, hunting for a girl.
05:23Read the field spot and the tail and the weight, which truly tell you something, and let the boy and
05:30girl story be.
05:31And that brings the fourth sign, which is weight, and this is a fine one.
05:37Pick the melon up and heft it, and then heft another of the same size beside it.
05:43The best melon is the one that feels heavy for its size, heavier than you expect, because that weight is
05:51water and sweetness packed full inside it.
05:54A melon that feels light for its size is apt to be dry or hollow within.
06:00Heavy for its size every time.
06:03Give it a knock, too, while you are at it, for a good ripe melon answers a knuckle rap with
06:10a deep, hollow, resonant sound, like a little drum, while a dull, flat thud means it is overripe or poor.
06:19Heavy in the hand, hollow to the knock, creamy in the field spot.
06:25Read those together, and you cannot go wrong.
06:29Now to the pineapple, which folks find mysterious inside its armor of spikes, but which shows its ripeness just as
06:37plainly if you know where to look.
06:40Start with the color.
06:41A good ripe pineapple shows a warm golden yellow coming up its skin, especially down at the base.
06:48The safe choice is the one gone properly golden, for that one is ripe and juicy.
06:55And here I must tell you an important truth, for folks get this badly wrong.
07:01Some buy a green pineapple, thinking it will ripen up sweet on the counter or in the icebox over a
07:08few days.
07:11This is the great thing to understand about a pineapple, unlike some fruits.
07:16Once it is cut from the plant, it does not get any sweeter.
07:20Whatever sweetness it had when picked is all it will ever have.
07:25It may soften, it may go off, but it will not sweeten.
07:36Next, look at the leaves, that green crown on top, for they tell you plainly.
07:44Take hold of one of the inner leaves and give it a gentle tug.
07:49If the leaves are all locked in tight and will not budge, the fruit is not ripe yet.
07:55If a leaf pulls out far too easily, at the barest touch, the fruit is overripe and going.
08:02What you want is the middle, a leaf that gives a little resistance, but comes free with a gentle, honest
08:09pull.
08:10That tells you it is just right.
08:13Then give the pineapple a small squeeze, for despite that hard, spiky shell,
08:19a properly ripe one will give just the littlest bit under your hands,
08:24a slight yielding, not hard as a rock, and not soft and mushy.
08:29And last, and this is the surest test of all, lift it up and smell the bottom of it,
08:35the base where it grew from the plant.
08:38A good ripe pineapple gives off a sweet, rich, honeyed smell right there at the base,
08:44a smell that fairly promises the sweetness inside.
08:48If it smells sweet, take it.
08:51If it smells of nothing at all, it was picked too green and will stay that way,
08:56so set it down and try the next.
08:59The nose knows a pineapple better than the eye.
09:03Now the cantaloupe, that netted melon which I have spoken on before,
09:08so I will give you the signs briskly.
09:11First, look over the rind, the whole surface, for cracks, soft, mushy spots, mold, or damage,
09:19and if it is not sound and whole all over, pass it by for a better one.
09:24Then the color under that netting,
09:26for a ripe cantaloupe shows a warm beige or golden tan beneath the rough net,
09:32while a green cast under there means it is not ripe yet,
09:36so choose the beige over the green.
09:39Then the weight, same as the watermelon.
09:42Heft it and choose the one that feels heavy for its size, full of juice.
09:47Then give it a knock and listen for that deep,
09:51hollow sound that tells of ripe flesh within.
09:54And last, the two surest tests together.
09:58Press gently on the end where the stem was,
10:01which should give just a little to your thumb,
10:04but not be soft and sunken.
10:06And then smell that same stem end,
10:09for a ripe cantaloupe breathes out a sweet, musky, unmistakable perfume right there.
10:15A cantaloupe that smells sweet at the stem end
10:18and gives just slightly to your thumb is ready and fine.
10:22One that smells of nothing is not ready
10:25and one gone soft and strong smelling is too far gone.
10:30Sound rind, beige color, heavy weight, hollow knock,
10:34sweet smelling stem with a slight give.
10:37Those are your cantaloupe signs.
10:40And last, the strawberry.
10:41And here the tips are a little different.
10:44For a strawberry, you mostly pick ripe by its plain look,
10:48deep red all over and fragrant,
10:50no white or green shoulders.
10:52So for the berry I want to give you instead,
10:55the two things that will keep the ones you buy or pick from
10:58spoiling on you before you can eat them.
11:01For a strawberry is a tender thing,
11:03and folks lose half of them to mold and mistakes.
11:07The first, and this surprises most folks,
11:10is do not pull the green stems and caps off your strawberries
11:13until the very moment you are about to eat them.
11:17Many a person hulls all their berries the moment they get them home,
11:21thinking to have them ready,
11:22and it is exactly the wrong thing.
11:25For the minute you tear that cap off,
11:27you open a wet wound in the berry,
11:29and there it sits,
11:31weeping and softening and spoiling far faster than it should.
11:35Leave the caps and stems on.
11:37The berry keeps far longer whole and closed up than it does hulled.
11:42Pull the cap only when the berry is on its way to your mouth or into the pot.
11:47And the second is to guard against the mold.
11:50For a strawberry mold spreads like wildfire from one berry to the whole basket in a day.
11:56So when you bring your berries home, look them over,
11:59and the moment you find even one berry gone soft or fuzzy or moldy,
12:04pick that one out and throw it away at once before it touches the rest.
12:08One bad berry left in the basket will rot the whole lot in a night.
12:14Pull the bad ones the instant you see them.
12:16Keep the rest whole and capped and cool and dry,
12:20and your strawberries will keep sound and sweet far longer.
12:24Let me say a plain word about who profits from you not knowing these signs,
12:28and it is no dark scheme.
12:31Think on it.
12:31The store is just as glad to sell you a poor, watery melon as a fine, sweet one.
12:37Gladder, maybe, for the poor ones must be sold, too.
12:41And if you cannot tell the difference,
12:43you will buy whatever they put in front of you and take your chances.
12:47There is no money in teaching you to pick only the best and leave the rest,
12:51for then the rest sit unsold.
12:53So the plain old signs that any farmer knows go untaught to the ordinary buyer,
12:59and folks go on squeezing and knocking with no idea what they are feeling for,
13:04bringing home the bland along with the sweet luck of the draw.
13:08It is not hidden from you exactly.
13:10It is just never taught.
13:12For a buyer who knows the signs is a buyer harder to please.
13:16The knowing runs to the grower and the seller and away from you,
13:20and it always has, until now.
13:23So there is the whole of it,
13:25the signs for the four great fruits of summer.
13:28For the watermelon, a creamy yellow field spot,
13:31good brown webbing, average size,
13:34and heavy in the hand with a hollow knock.
13:36For the pineapple, gone properly golden,
13:40a crown leaf that pulls with a gentle tug,
13:43a slight give to a squeeze,
13:45and above all, a sweet smell at the base,
13:47remembering it will never sweeten after picking.
13:51For the cantaloupe, a sound rind, beige, not green,
13:55heavy for its size, hollow to the knock,
13:58and a sweet-smelling stem end that gives just slightly.
14:02And for the strawberry, leave the caps on till you eat them,
14:05and pull any moldy one at once.
14:08Learn those signs, and you will read a fruit the way a farmer reads it,
14:12and never again bring home a bad one by luck of the draw.
14:15Tell me down in the comments what county you garden or shop in,
14:20and what signs your own family taught you for picking ripe fruit.
14:24For near every household has its own trick,
14:27a way of thumping a melon or reading a stem,
14:30and I dearly love to collect them.
14:33And tell me which fruit has fooled you most often over the years,
14:37for now I think you may know why it did.
14:40Next time out here, I want to show you how to build a proper compost pile the old way,
14:46layer upon layer,
14:47so that you can grow your own sweet melons and berries at home,
14:51and never have to guess at the store at all.
14:54For the surest way to a sweet fruit is to grow it yourself in rich ground of your own making.
15:01It is the foundation under all of it, and it is past time I showed you.
15:06But for now, remember this.
15:08A fruit is an honest thing.
15:11It cannot lie to you about what it is.
15:13It wears its ripeness right on the outside,
15:16in its color and its weight and its smell.
15:20For anyone with the eyes and the nose and the patience to read it.
15:25We have only forgotten how to look.
15:27Learn the old signs again,
15:29and the whole summer harvest opens itself up to you,
15:33sweet and sure.
15:35The people who built this country with their hands knew that,
15:39and we are only just starting to remember it.
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