There is no money for me in selling melons commercially, so I don't do it anymore.
But it is still fun to give people a "melon farm experience."
I explained back on Friday that cucumber beetle control keeps me from growing melons organically, and there is no profit margin at all selling melons for 15 to 20 cents a pound. That is the wholesale price for supermarket melons. That is the same price I got 55 years ago.
It is fun for me to show visitors around a melon patch during harvest season in August and September. I call this "melon tourism." The ideal situation is when a parent or grandparent brings out school-age children. The highpoint is dropping watermelons on purpose. Then I use a clean knife to cut the heart into big chunks. People pull the chunks off the knife and eat them.
Little ones can ride in a wheelbarrow.
This isn't just for children:
Young people find the tractor noisy and gigantic, and they can safely push and pull the lever on the front end loader.
Nowadays it is unusual for people to be given the permission to drop a watermelon. People are reluctant to do it. "You mean just drop it??? Really???"
Watermelons make a very satisfying crunch sound when they hit the ground. They crack open but don't get mushy. The hearts are still surprisingly cold, even if the melon has spent the entire day in the hot sun.
One confirms the difference between a ripe watermelon and and unripe one by the sound of the thump on the side of the melon. People have a hard time hearing that difference, but I can teach it. People quickly pick up on the difference in color between a cantaloupe that is ready to "slip" because it is vine ripe, and one that is still green. It is easier to see than to describe, but put simply it it the difference between greenish beige and beige-ish green.
I don't have a photograph of the game of tossing cantaloupes because I am almost always the person doing the tossing, but part of the melon-tourism experience is to catch a gently-tossed melon. I toss them 10 feet or more to teenagers, so they can put them into the bin bucket. It feels risky and somehow naughty to visitors to see food tossed.
An extended bit of melon tourism is to drive to the farm's south boundary on the Rogue River. I encourage visitors to skip rocks on the flat surface of the river. Kids learn that quickly. Young men sometimes can throw a rock across to the opposite bank, but it is a tough throw. It gives young fathers a chance to impress their children.
People go home with melons.
That is pretty much it--the "melon tourism" experience. Nothing that happens on the farm is as exciting as a first-person-shooter video game or a ride at Disneyland. City kids don't have much experience with farms, so for most of them this is new. Plus, there is all the watermelon they can eat.
There isn't any big grand purpose to this beyond teaching people a little bit about farms. City people have lost touch with where food comes from.
2 comments:
Very cool. Cute pictures of the little kids. That would’ve been me around 70 years ago, fascinated with the tractor.
I’m here for this. 😊
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