Crenshaw

• Store whole ripe melons in the refrigerator for up to a week to avoid spoiling; cut melons will keep for up to three days. If you have ripe melons you can’t use immediately, dice or cut the flesh into balls and freeze for slushies or cold soup.

• Store melon slices in a perforated plastic bag in a refrigerator. You can purchase perforated plastic bags or make your own by punching 20 holes in a medium-size bag; use a hole punch or sharp object.

• Melons should be kept cold and moist (50°F/10°C and 95 percent relative humidity). Creating cold and moist storage is a challenge: refrigerators provide the cold, but also have dry air.

• Melons are susceptible to chilling injury at temperatures below 50°F; chilling injury symptoms include surface pitting, water loss, yellow, browning of rinds, decreased sweetness, and rapid deterioration.

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Considered one of the most sweetly succulent members of the melon family, the Crenshaw is a hybrid muskmelon. It has a golden-green, smooth yet lightly ribbed rind and a beautiful salmon-orange flesh. These melons are large (5 to 9 pounds) with an oval shape that's rounded at the blossom end and slightly pointed at the stem end.