Watermelons ripen in time for holiday

CORDELE, Ga. -- Geneva Jones sometimes imagines what it would be like to stick identification labels on the thousands of watermelons her family grows in the sandy south Georgia soil.

It would be impossible, of course, in the haste to harvest their 17 acres, but she yearns for feedback, especially from people who eat them at Fourth of July picnics.

"I wish we could put stickers on them and we could find out where they went," she said. "We have buyers from everywhere."

Watermelons are as elemental as the flag, fireworks and John Philip Sousa marches at July Fourth gatherings around the country. And, thanks to Georgia's climate and growing conditions, watermelons here ripen so they are sweetest just as the holiday hits.

Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture Tommy Irvin, who rides a watermelon float in three July parades, said the fruit has become a symbol of patriotism.

"How can you have a good picnic on a warm summer day without some cold watermelon?" he asked. "And it's healthy to boot."

"A watermelon is practically a multivitamin into itself," said Samantha Winters, spokeswoman for the National Watermelon Promotion Board in Orlando, Fla. "Being 92 percent water, it is a wonderful hydrator."

Festivals and fruit

Farmers expect record consumption this year, thanks in part to the nation's patriotic mood. The Cordele State Farmers Market has been juiced up with activity and optimism for weeks. South Georgia should produce about $25 million worth of watermelons this year.

The market, which ships about 170 million pounds of the fruit, mostly in June and July, is a major East Coast supplier for holiday picnics.

The Crisp County town of Cordele, which bills itself as the "Watermelon Capital of the World," has honored the fruit with an annual festival for 53 years. The theme of this year's festival, which runs from June 22 to July 13, is "A Crisp slice of America, a tribute to all veterans."

The town of 11,000, located about 150 miles south of Atlanta, has become a mecca for growers throughout south Georgia and northern Florida. Roads leading to the market are littered with the carcasses of melons that bounce out of overloaded trucks and trailers

These days, drooping pickups and trailers, even gutted, roofless school buses, line up at the market's gates to be weighed. Then they creep across a vast parking lot to sheds, where growers wait -- sometimes for hours, sometimes all night -- until they make their melon connection.

Savoring sweet melons

Jones and her husband, Clarence, recently arrived with two pickups and a trailer full of the special melons they grow -- with yellow, rather than the traditional red, meat.

"They're real sweet -- sweeter than the red ones," said Jones, of Sylvester, 20 miles east of Albany. "Our yellow meat watermelons sell very well."

Her husband grumbled about the prices, but said he's resigned to that.

"If they're low, I sell them and let them go," he said. "That's all I can do."

Out in the parking lot, muscular laborers tossed 50-pound watermelons around like basketballs as they transferred melons from farm vehicles to trucks and refrigerated trailers that would rush them to supermarkets and fruit stands throughout the East.

Georgia is in its fifth year of drought, but much of the crop is irrigated.

James Boyd, who lives in the Worth County community of Doles, said his pond ran dry, leaving him with no water for irrigation. His watermelons would normally range from 30 to 50 pounds, but this year they're only 10 to 20 pounds.

He saw that as an advantage. "A dry weather watermelon is sweeter than a wet weather watermelon, normally," said Boyd, who has been hauling melons to the market for 52 years.

Gary Lucier, a U.S. Department of Agriculture economist, said watermelon consumption has increased over the past decade because of better promotion, seedless varieties, smaller melons that fit into refrigerators and higher quality.

"It appears there is a little more strength and demand this year," he said.

That's good news to the farmers selling the Jubilees, Black Diamonds, Crimson Sweets and Jubilations at the Cordele market.

Boyd said he hopes Americans show their patriotism by eating more watermelons this July Fourth.

"The more they eat, the more we sell," he said. "That's the object."