D&V Organics CSA
Week 9
We are happy to announce that our melon season has finally begun. If this hot weather is good for one thing, it's growing great melons on the farm. This past week we picked a bunch of watermelon and cantaloupe from our first planting. One of our favorite activities is sampling melons in the field while we are out harvesting. Over the years we've experimented with different varieties to try to find what grows best on our soils and the varieties that taste the richest and sweetest. With some trial and error, we think we've found some of the best tasting varieties that we can produce on our farm. To maximize flavor, we pick as ripe as we possibly can, that being said, our melons should be refrigerated or consumed sooner rather than later. Watermelons don't have a smell that indicates their ripeness, we use the best indicators on the plant to determine if they are ready, and then we pick them. All of our watermelons are seeded varieties, sorry, but we think the sugar content and flavors of seeded varieties are worth it and much better than the modern seedless varieties. Our cantaloupes aren't always the prettiest; we grow a few different varieties, some that don't always have the most perfect netting, but the varieties we grow are almost always incredibly sweet with a rich melon essence. There are two ends to a cantaloupe, the blossom end and the stem end. The stem end is the end that came off the plant's vine, and if this end has a sweet smelling, cantaloupe aroma, the melon is ready to eat.
Enjoy,
Derek and Crew
