when's watermelon picking time

I can never tell when their ripe and I can't tell by the thump. what's the best way to tell when their ripe, we planted these, ( I don't know the name of them) watermelons the same time as the cantelopes, we're picking the cantelope daily now.

You need 3 brown or dead curlers next to the melon. One on the stem holding the melon & one each way on the next leaf. Thumping only works to tell if they are overripe.
We sold 32 today at our Farmers Market.

In addition to the browning of the tendrils, the ground spot on the belly of the melon turns from white to yellow.

Awesome!! exactly what I needed to know.

We’ve been eating melons (Jubilees) out of our patch for a week or two now. (I took four nice ones to church yesterday, Fun Day for the kids, water slide and all.) Usually we have ripe melons by the third week of July, some years a little earlier. I plant the last week of April to the first week of May, weather permitting. Over the years I’ve found, where I tend, that the yellow melons (Tendersweets–none this year, bad seeds) ripen a few days earlier than the reds (Jubilees, sometimes Black Diamonds, I’d like to try the Sangria, but the seeds are higher than a hissin’ cat’s back.). Ripening being a little later this year, I attribute to much more than average July rain.

How do I tell? I look at a combination of things which include all of the ones mentioned above. Also, very important–including cultivar–are conditions under which the crop has grown: weather, dirt, how they were tended. Also, how the vine looks (leaves at maturity or slightly past, maybe some taking on a yellow tinge) and how the melon looks (not a shiny, immature, green-looking green, especially if it’s been lying beneath a baking sun). August in SW Arkansas will ripen melons quick! Check the weather we’ve had this past week.

Thumping can deliver a message, I firmly believe. Ask any good melon- thumper or Mick Fleetwood (Levon Helm’s not around anymore.) or Thumper (He’s been around forever, it seems. He just keeps going and going and . . .).

If you’re trying to learn, visit with your melons all season long. Don’t start out visiting and thumping on the day that you think that a melon might be ripe, the day you want something. Start when you know, “This melon’s as green as a gourd.” And keep thumping, noting the change in tone as the season changes, up ‘til the day you get up enough courage to pull it loose from its vine.

What’s that sound? To my ear a green melon will reverberate, echoing a lively sound. A ready melon’s sound is a tired, I’m-all-done, thud.

I’m all done. Got it?

We use Sangria & don't worry about cost of the seed. They cost us $40.00 for 500 seeds. Yesterday we sold out at the market. 32 melons priced between $7 & $10.
I think our seed is paid for.

I think your right countrygardens :)