Picking watermelon

One of my favorite holidays is fast approaching....Labor Day. Marking the end of the summer season, Labor Day is laid back and easy. No gifts, no elaborate meals, no pressure. The weather is usually nice (unlike Memorial Day) and no changing around on the calendar; always the first Monday of September. Just blue skies and a BBQ or two.

This upcoming weekend is prime BBQ & picnic time and what makes a BBQ great? Watermelon!

We have had a great crop this year; sweet, juicy and tasty! One question that we answer quite a bit is "How do you know a watermelon is good/sweet/juicy?" The short answer is to get your watermelon from someone that grows them. We can tell in the field if the melon is ready or not. If it's ready, then it goes on the trailer. Not ready? It stays in the field. Simple? Of course it is easy if you've picked 56,938 melons in your life! How about some pictures?

First, you need to get out to the melon patch. Really, there are melons out there--not just weeds! If you look closely, you can see some melons through all the weeds. As you may have noticed, weed control isn't very high on our list right now. We do try to keep the weeds to a minimum early in the season, but it's a losing battle. Notice the lovely stand of lambs quarters in the background, in front of the corn. We have the loveliest weeds!






The two pictures above show what we look for in a ripe watermelon. The top picture is the ground spot. That's where the melon sits on the ground as it grows. In a immature melon, this spot will be very light in color; off-white or cream colored. As the melon matures, this spot will darken in color. Each variety is different and some will be very dark yellow while some are a pale butter color.

The bottom picture is of the infamous tendril. This very small and seemingly insignificant part of the stem system is perhaps the most helpful to a us. When the tendril dries up, we figure that we've got a pretty ripe melon. The ground spot is checked, the melon is thumped (listening for a clear, ringing tone) and if everything checks out, it gets picked and put on the trailer. Notice the black dog supervising in the background. Skipper is keeping everything running smoothly!


It may not look muddy, but Dana managed to rub off quite a bit of dirt on her shirt. Bill and the crew fan out across the field, similar to a fire brigade line. Bill, Karen & Brenda usually do the actual checking and picking and the others are just muscle.



Picture to be posted later, but as the melons are picked, they get tossed down the line into the trailer. It sounds easy, but it's much harder than it looks...many of these melons are in the neighborhood of 20-30 lbs and we can pick over 200 for a weekend market. It is a great upper body workout for abs and arms (coming soon--Mitchell Farms Workout video!)

What does all that work get you? A beautiful, sweet watermelon! This is one of the Vanessas: a small, dark personal sized melon. Very juicy & sweet with a crisp bite and a great size for just one or two.

Besides watermelon, what else will we have for your picnicing needs?

• Yellow watermelon--we will have a few--we've almost picked all of the yellow watermelon (note to Bill: grow more!) and some of y'all are addicted to them! Come and check early in the market if you want one.
• Sweet Corn-nature's original fast food: minutes from pot or grill to table! If you are having out of town visitors, you must introduce them to our corn. They'll be amazed that simple corn can taste so good!
• Cantaloupe--this will be coming to a close soon, but right now they are at their peak!
• Crensahw melons- new for us! This is a cross between a casaba melon & a persian melon yielding an oblong, bright yellow melon with a sweet, spicy scent. Ours are a pale orange color on the inside, with a firm, fine grained texture. It's the new thing to try this week!
• Green beans--we love this new variety that we are growing for fall. Very straight, skinny and tender--good enough to nibble on raw.
• Cucumbers-starting to make a comeback with the new fall planting
• Summer squash--ditto to cucumbers!
  
• Eggplant--all shapes, colors and sizes. It isn't too late to give one a try!
• Sweet onions
• Hot peppers--jalapeno, habanero, peppercorncini
  
• Green peppers

.......and that's about it. You'll notice that tomatoes are absent from the list. We've struggled with them all season and now the plants have just given up. They were good while we had them!

I am looking forward to seeing lots and lots of folks at the market this weekend! Have company in for the weekend? Bring them down and show off one of the best farmer's markets in the state! Remember those canvas bags, grab a cup of coffee and the dog and get downtown! We look forward to seeing you!

Welcome to the Jungle

It's hot where you are. Not just hot; humid, stifling, thick. Looking forward, left and right, all you can see is green growth, thick, impossible to move through. Even though you aren't moving, sweat is running in a river down your back; your shoes are soaked with water and caked with mud. It's barely 8 am and already the sun is unbearable.

Welcome to picking sweet corn in Illinois!

Sweet corn picking is hot, wet, messy work--see how we do it!

This is the view of most of the corn that is shoulder high. We'll be picking over on the right hand side of the picture.The rows to be picked are 6 on the right of the truck and 6 more to the left of the truck. Can you see the end of the row? Way, way, waaaaaaay down on the horizon. It's about 1/4 of a mile.

First, grab about 4 or 5 burlap bags. Hold onto one and tuck the rest into your waist band or pockets. It will look like a very itchy skirt. Important safety tip: wearing a black shirt isn't recommended. Light colors work best. Dana and Jason were VERY hot by the end of the morning.


This is your row. Notice the lack of visibility. There is only about 18" between rows. To really experience how hot the corn field is, go into your bathroom, turn on the shower with the hottest water and hang out for 20 minutes or so. Think hot, wet, sticky.


Everyone wave to Carson! He is only about 4 rows away from me. He picked about 13 bags on Friday. There are 5-6 dozen in each bag and they get heavy. Carson is asking me why I am still on the trailer taking pictures. I had to put down the camera after this and pick corn myself.

I couldn't take pictures and pick corn at the same time. This shot is about two hours later as we are picking up the full bags. As we pick down the rows, we carry our bags to the nearest lane. When Bill decides that we have enough bags, we drive down the rows and put the bags in the truck bed and trailer.You can kind of see LeAnn, Brenda and Brandi and the bags of corn. Several of us walk alongside the truck and hand them the bags. The truck kept moving, not stopping. The irrigation had gone through the field in the night, so the field was extra muddy and we were worried about the truck getting stuck with all the weight of the corn. Each bag weighs between 50 & 70 pounds, depending on who filled it.This was my view for most of this exercise. Bill can't really see me and is more concerned with getting stuck or knocking one of the kids off the back of the truck. Running over your wife? Not really a big deal.


This is our fantastic crew: Karen, Dana, Bill, Carson, LeAnn, Emily (she picked 4 bags by herself), and Brenda. Hiding in the back are Brandi and Jason. We simply cannot run our operation without the help of these great workers. Notice that most are girls! Our corn is a very tender variety that must be picked by hand. Using machinery would damage the ears so much that they would be unfit for sale. We could grow a lesser variety, but we will not compromise the taste or tenderness of our corn, just to save a little time.

Produce farming is very physical demanding work in all conditions: hot, cold, rainy, extreme heat. We have a dedicated crew that takes pride helping us bring you the best produce that we can grow.