It is seed catalog season.
Mid-winter is the season of boundless ambition and opportunity.
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| Santa Claus Melon |
Melons. Beautiful melons. New melons. Exotic melons. Heirloom melons. F1 hybrid melons. Orange-flesh. Green-flesh.
I have been growing melons nearly every summer since I was about 11 years old. It was a good summer job for me and my younger brother, David. Our father did most of the work at first, of course, but even elementary school-age kids can weed, move irrigation pipes, then pick and carry four-pound cantaloupes and 20-pound watermelons. He let us keep the proceeds from the sales. Both my brother and I had savings accounts at JCF -- Jackson County Savings and Loan. We each made a few hundred dollars per summer at first.
As we got older, the melon fields got bigger. More melons, more money to bank for college. When I could drive at age 16 the harvest, packing, and delivery part of the job became something my brother and I mostly handled. Blunt's ranch market at the north end of the Phoenix, Oregon city limits was a primary customer. Mid-season, starting about Labor Day and lasting for four weeks, we needed secondary markets. Sherm's Thunderbird Market was a high-volume grocery store, and they took time to deal with local growers.
I stopped growing melons to sell four years ago, when I turned 70. Sellable units of cantaloupes are boxes sold as weighing 40 pounds. They weigh 44 or 45 pounds, since I give "good weight." To have commercial quantities one lifts and carries around 40 to 50 pounds of melons several hundred times day. Too much.
Now I grow them to give away to friends. Grocery customers buy what they know. "Hales Best" variety cantaloupes are familiar to shoppers. They are excellent when picked ripe and handled properly, which is possible to do in season, and impossible out of season. Every reader has seen Hales Best melons.
Another common melon is the Tuscan variety. It was exotic and new 65 years ago when I first started selling them to Mr. Blunt and Sherm's Thunderbird. Here is an image of Tuscan melons from the True Leaf catalog.
Tuscan melons are sweet, with a Brix of about 15 instead of the 10 of traditional cantaloupes. (Brix is a measure of sugar content.) That means they can be picked less ripe than traditional melons and still meet customer expectation. Look closely at the very left edge of the melon in this photo. There is a stem remnant. It means it was picked before the "full slip" that would have left a smooth concave navel. That is how the melon would have looked had it been left on the vine and become "vine-ripe." Vine-ripe is far superior, but the Tuscan variety melon lets growers get away with picking underripe melons that customers will accept. A melon picked underripe has a longer shelf life.
The seed catalogs become temptations for people who aren't trying to sell melons. One can experiment with melons one is giving away. My favorite is this Santa Claus melon, also known as the Piel de Sapo. It is very sweet, with an intense taste I can only describe as "melon-y." Here is another photo of that variety.
You will rarely see the French Charantais melon in supermarkets or even at fruit stands. They are thin-skinned and delicate, so they don't ship well. Many of them split at the blossom end and are ruined in the field. They need to be picked under-ripe. But when you get a good one, it has a strong, concentrated flavor.
The seed companies tempt gardeners with new varieties. Here is a Kajari Sweet from Urban Garden seeds:
Here is a Snow Leopard from Johnny's Seeds:
Here is a melon called "Collective Farm Woman":
Here is a Tam Dew melon, sold by Mountain Valley Seed Company:
There are lots more like these. These look like fun to me. I am tempted to try them all and plant just one more row of each. It is hard to know when to stop shopping for seeds and planting more rows and to accept one's limitations. The more one plants the more one needs to tend. Old farmers, like old politicians, have difficulty knowing when to stop.
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13 comments:
The supermarket seeds were expensive costing $100 for a pound versus the regular ones that cost around $7 a pound. We planted the supermarket seeds and counted out 5 seeds to a hill as we wanted enough for each hill to have 3, but wanted to be careful of using more than needed. In the 60 s $100 was quite a bit of money. Remembering the past is a pleasant activity most of the time for an old guy like me.
I am glad that you enjoy growing melons. Your family, friends and neighbors are lucky to get them from your farm.
I did not get a chance yesterday to comment about Joe Biden. I support his re-election because I trust him and his team to do what is best for our country. I don't expect him to be perfect. There is a madman, criminal and traitor on the other side.
In addition to VP Kamala Harris, we have Senator Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakim Jefferies. Plus many other capable and experienced elected officials and public servants on Team Biden.
Spelling: Hakeem Jeffries
I’ve had Peter’s vine-ripened melons and can vouch for how good they are. But let’s not forget this is a political blog, it’s Super Bowl Sunday and today football and politics collide.
MAGA fans must be feeling befuddled over who to root for, or even whether to watch the game. The 49ers hail from a bastion of LGBTQ wokeness, and the Chiefs are part of a suckular humanist liberal conspiracy: Taylor Swift will appear on the field after her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s team wins, as part of a Pentagon-backed psy-op to turn the rigged game into a political endorsement for Joe Biden. I heard it on MAGA media, so it must be true.
First of all, I love cantaloupes, but the supermarket ones are mostly lacking sweetness and are sometimes hard and dry. I would love to get one picked when ripe.
In response to another comment, I would not think that Schumer could ever win a general election for president. Kamala Harris would make a fine president but probably could not win the general election. But I like the mention of Hakim Jefferies, as I think he could be a winner some day.
I haven't watched a Super Bowl since Joe Montana retired, but I'm rooting for the Chiefs today so I can watch Tuckio Rose weasel out of his promise to kill himself if the Chiefs win.
I've had the Supreme pleasure of a vine ripened Sage Farm melon several times, and they are truly sublime.
As regards Shuckless Schumah, I'm not at all sure I could force myself to vote for him, in any capacity, and often question why he is Majority Leader, because I don't see much leadership from his Office.
If President Biden wins, I agree there are capable people in Washington to help him maintain a steady course.
Obviously, the best result us to beat Mango Mussolini so badly he can't prevail with his nonsensical claims of being cheated, despite the help he is getting from the Main Stream Media.
Trump just promised to support Putin if he invades any of our NATO Allies, and it's being ignored by the Media while they devote endless hours of screen and print to The President forgetting a name.
Peter, I have an old photo of your Dad sitting at the kitchen table sorting out cantaloupe seeds in preparation of late spring planting. I remember taking those seeds to the farm and placing three per mound about a yard apart in the upper field by the irrigation ditch. All good memories of the tedious and laborious tasks leading up to harvest babying the vines as much as we could hoping all the time the weather and the wildlife cooperated.
Obviously the person (no names allowed...depending on the day of the week) missed the point about Schumer and the others mentioned. He is the Democratic leader in the Senate, hello. The people mentioned are our Democratic leaders in Washington DC. They are NOT candidates for president. Along with many others, they are PART of Team Biden.
It is sad that you took an otherwise interesting blog about melon farming and left a nasty, bitter taste at the very end. But that is who you are.
Everyone who reads this blog already knows that you think Joe Biden sucks, should never have been elected and should not run for re-election. Have you counted how many times and in how many ways you have told us? We are now in 2024 and you continue. You must get a lot of satisfaction dumping on our Democratic president, who saved us from the former Occupant, COVID and who has accomplished so much for so many Americans.
We know that you hate the way he walks, talks and looks. We know that you relish each trip, fall and verbal mistake. We know that you are a regular viewer of Faux News and that you are willing to promote their propaganda and hate.
President Biden is not perfect, no one is. But he has done a good job since he won the Electoral College and the popular vote by 7 million votes.
You, Peter the Great Sage, will be partly to blame if he loses. Then you can write a victory blog about how "I told you!" Hopefully that will not happen.
I have a request for Peter the Great Sage. Other than how he looks, walks and talks, please evaluate President Biden's actual job performance. Evaluate him on the substantive issues, not theater and appearances. Some of us care about actual job performance and results. Maybe you can try and do the same.
If you have already done what I have requested, please provide the date of the blog. Was it recently? Thank you
Anonymous @ 6:59:
I didn't miss anything, and am well aware that Schumah isn't running for President, and also aware that in my opinion, he is the weakest Senate Majority Leader in my voting lifetime.
When I see a post like this, I often think I'm reading a different Blog from the one I've been following for a number of years.
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