Just cut that Strawberry. Perfect! Flavorful, crisp-textured and very sweet. (Sugar spots don’t lie!) Everything, in brief, that a watermelon should be. Still my favorite cultivar of all time. And I do think I will devote myself entirely to it from now on, saving seed and maybe seeing if I can select for a little more regularity in shape. (Of course, when a melon tastes like this, who cares if it’s a little irregular?)
We also popped open the Orangeglo a couple of days ago. It was ripe—and pretty (sorry, negelcted to take pics)—but highly disappointing flavor-wise. Rather bland and soft-textured; would’ve gone to mush in 2-3 more days. We tried orange-fleshed melons many years ago (can’t remember what variety, but it wasn’t Orangeglo), and mushiness/mealiness was a problem with those, too. Probably great in some areas, but maybe not here. (I’ve got more in the patch, including one ready to come in today; so we’ll see if some of those are better) Here, Strawberry is still king. Fortunately, several more are in the queue, with two coming in today. They may or may not be as good as this one, but after several years of growing it, I’ve yet to meet a bad Strawberry. Provided I’ve harvested them at the right time, they’ve all ranged from pretty good to superb; no other 'melon has shown such consistency in my experience.
Addendum: Best orange 'melon I ever tried was a tiny Japanese watermelon called Kaho. If I harvested at the right time—and I had a difficult time judging them—they were usually sweet. Still had tendency to get soft, though; I think the harvesting window for optimum texture was very small, and they went overripe very quickly. That might be the case with Orangeglo—and the others—, too: I might not have the trick of harvesting them at the right time. Still wouldn’t have helped the low sugar content, though.