The rainiest city in America isn’t Seattle, Washington or some wild place in New England. Okay, it’s not Tallahassee either, but we are 9th! In fact, all of the Top 10 Rainiest Cities are in the Southeastern part of the country and 4 are in Florida alone. While I know I shouldn’t complain, it’s hard to stay positive when the skies are gray for weeks on end.
With all that rain, we are fighting diseases in the watermelon field and the added stress of heat from our late planting date is making things difficult. We are seeing some really big watermelons and for that, I feel really blessed and lucky. We will be selling those watermelons soon here on this website in the store or through the Red Hills Online Market (RHOM.
We planted three different varieties of watermelon this year: Crimson Sweet, Jubilee, Fascination (seedless). The Jubilee can be seen in this Instagram post and were already longer than my foot at just 6 weeks! I’ve also seen some large Crimson Sweet and the Fascination is way behind. I think (hope) that the latter will size up nicely and as long as I can stay on the weeds and disease, they should be ready in late July.
Next to the watermelons, I planted about an acre of green beans again. And just like last year, they aren’t doing great. We may get a few bags to be able to freeze for our family this year, but probably not much more. I think next year I will plant them in hills by hand rather than using the seeder attachment I have for the tractor. The germination rate is pretty poor so if they don’t do well next year, I’ll switch varieties or maybe seed company.
As to that gorgeous sunflower in the photo, those are popping up all over that field and some will be sold at the RHOM. The rest will be harvested and the seeds will be crushed for oil. I am hoping to have a clean product by the week of Halloween. Of course this all depends on whether or not I can find a way to extract that oil without making Mrs. Sunshine faint when she sees the invoice for that. Wish me luck…
Speaking of Halloween, we planted pumpkins! We are hoping to provide you with these large Jack-o-Lantern pumpkins well before Halloween day. This will give you time to carve your Jack-o-Lantern for that spookiest of nights and be able to roast seeds and make ‘punkin pie’! I know we can’t compete with the churches and the U-Pick market, but I promise I am putting everything I know into growing these.
Like with a lot of our other produce, I want the customer to get a product that has an emotional attachment to it. Whether we’re related and you’re just proud to have a pumpkin I grew (hi mom) or it is one of those things that bring back great memories and help build new ones, we want the food you get from us to be tasty, fresh, and, above all, safe.
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