The Tropical Fruit Forum

Temperate Fruit & Orchards => Temperate Fruit Discussion => Topic started by: fruit delivery vancouver on December 19, 2015, 05:13:30 PM

Title: It's expensive to be square
Post by: fruit delivery vancouver on December 19, 2015, 05:13:30 PM
Just in time for Christmas I noticed these in my local supermarket. But here's the thing - do they actually taste any better?. I dont think I can afford to find out. Apparently the melons are harvested like this to reduce shelf space in Asia. Really?
Has anyone grown melons like this before?


(http://s28.postimg.cc/lnbmj2wc9/square_watermelons.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/lnbmj2wc9/)

https://goo.gl/FScn6I (https://goo.gl/FScn6I)
Sarah - Fruit for Offices Vanccouver
Title: Re: It's expensive to be square
Post by: starch on December 19, 2015, 05:25:32 PM
Man, makes me want to play Super Mario Sunshine and smash some square watermelons :)
Title: Re: It's expensive to be square
Post by: gunnar429 on December 19, 2015, 07:13:32 PM
They use a mold to grow them and put the fruit inside the mold while it is small.  No, they don't taste better, but they're a hell of a lot easier for the grocer to stack.
Title: Re: It's expensive to be square
Post by: murahilin on December 20, 2015, 08:19:07 AM
Just in time for Christmas I noticed these in my local supermarket. But here's the thing - do they actually taste any better?. I dont think I can afford to find out. Apparently the melons are harvested like this to reduce shelf space in Asia. Really?
Has anyone grown melons like this before?


(http://s28.postimg.cc/lnbmj2wc9/square_watermelons.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/image/lnbmj2wc9/)

https://goo.gl/FScn6I (https://goo.gl/FScn6I)
Sarah - Fruit for Offices Vanccouver

That's not your pic. Did you actually see this recently or are you just trying to do some advertising?
Title: Re: It's expensive to be square
Post by: fruit delivery vancouver on December 20, 2015, 11:12:36 PM
Hey Munahilin, I did see these recently, though you are right it's not my photo. We don't actually sell Watermelons either so not trying to advertise them. Also we only deliver to Vancouver so really no point in advertising to forum members.

I do love the forum though. My husband and I use it to expand our knowledge base as we have invested and coop a city centre urban farm - city fruit for city workers. We are looking at common problems with fruit growing and diseases. I loved your post about sweet sunrise strawbs, I always find fruit for thought.

Sarah
Title: Re: It's expensive to be square
Post by: murahilin on December 25, 2015, 11:36:26 PM
Hey Munahilin, I did see these recently, though you are right it's not my photo. We don't actually sell Watermelons either so not trying to advertise them. Also we only deliver to Vancouver so really no point in advertising to forum members.

I do love the forum though. My husband and I use it to expand our knowledge base as we have invested and coop a city centre urban farm - city fruit for city workers. We are looking at common problems with fruit growing and diseases. I loved your post about sweet sunrise strawbs, I always find fruit for thought.

Sarah

Okay cool. I just wanted to make sure you weren't someone just posting a few random posts for advertising purposes.

A city center urban farm sounds awesome. How large is the piece of land? What fruit are currently being grown?
Title: Re: It's expensive to be square
Post by: DimplesLee on January 02, 2016, 08:36:18 AM
Hi Sarah - I think I first saw this in Japan years ago - they do these for melons as well (honeydew and stuff). They also have star shaped and heart shaped cherry and grape tomatoes :) supermarkets near the uni and young professional rental flats  usually have the kawaii shaped maters.

The molds are usually made from repurposed wood from crates/pallets. The mater moulds tho are expensive plastic or silicone types.  I don't know whether they had any luck with boxing in squash and pumpkins but they were trying to do that way back then.

Update: square squashes and pumpkins also common there nowadays as well as cubecumbers and cube bitter melons - wonder what's next.

Update II:
Sarah - I believe I will be dreaming of putting all of my limes and lemons in "citrus corsets!"

http://www.withheartandstar.com/home (http://www.withheartandstar.com/home)

Star-shaped moulds? That's a five point shape, perhaps a four point flower shape would sell better esp among female gardeners.
Title: Re: It's expensive to be square
Post by: Daintree on January 04, 2016, 07:54:00 AM
Burpee sells these molds, and I had great fun putting them on tomatoes with the grandkids.  However, it was pretty much a disaster with my greenhouse-grown citrus.  It only takes a couple weeks to grow a shaped tomato, but the months it takes with citrus was just HEAVEN for my stubborn mealy bug population! They LOVED these molds!
Title: Re: It's expensive to be square
Post by: fruit delivery vancouver on January 19, 2016, 01:34:25 AM
That sounds like fun for the grand kids, it might be fun to try a cucumber. We are mostly trying to grow a load of berries this year as our bushes mature. We are trying to get strawberries going all through the summer and we have about 13 apple trees. The price of fruit has just taken a real hit here due to the weakened loonie so this may well become profitable if not, just tastier  - otherwise i might just try and sell square watermelons!!