fruit notes
Carine and Robert Hines started Sun Tracker Farm in 2016, making this season their 10-year farming anniversary! They grow an abundance of beautiful things, though we primarily focus on their melons for the fan club. Carine and Robert grow for flavor, and we consider them the melon whisperers. Every year, they strive to become better melon farmers: staying on top of weed management, burying irrigation lines to help deter pill bugs (they love melons, too), and building healthier soils. Surprisingly, they don't give their melon plants any additional fertilizer beyond what's available in the soil after their cover crop and chicken flock rotations. Carine shared, "The [melon] plants have to mine whatever is in the soil, searching deep for whatever they can. They don't produce the biggest melons and aren't the most productive plants, but it allows the fruit to mature more slowly and results in concentrated flavor."
We often marvel at the matter-of-fact, nonchalant way stone fruit growers say, "Oh yeah, I just planted some of those – we should have fruit for you in three or four years!" Of course, this is true for most tree fruit. It can take anywhere from two to four years before a tree produces a real crop. For melon farmers Carine and Robert Hines of Sun Tracker Farm, every season starts from seed. And it's never a walk in the park. Some years the seed isn't available. Some years the price increases. And some years, they order the same seed of the same variety from the same company, only to grow it out and discover it's something that looks and tastes entirely different.
For the last two years, seeds for one of our favorite melons from Sun Tracker – the Trinidad melon – have been a struggle to find. Last year, the seed company was sold out, but Sun Tracker was able to buy seeds from another farm. This past winter, their distributor simply didn't have any Trinidad melon seeds. After a lot of searching, they couldn't find them anywhere in the U.S. So for this year's planting, Carine resorted to growing a different Sharlyn-type melon. It's not the Trinidad cultivar, but they're taking a chance on a whole new variety they've never grown before.
This winter, they also ordered the same Crenshaw melon seeds they've been growing for many years. Carine was hoping for an earlier Crenshaw harvest this season, but instead they're growing out to be more than a month late, and the melons even look a little different. Carine wonders, "Did the seed company change the seed and not say anything?"
The Sivan Charentais is likely the most popular melon Sun Tracker grows. It’s a French heirloom melon that's intensely aromatic, sweet, and deeply flavorful. Thanks to Carine's French farmer instincts – and her pickiness when it comes to melons – they've spent years experimenting to find and select the very best Charentais. They grew the same Sivan Charentais seed for five years. Then one year, they ordered the exact same seed and planted multiple successions, only to discover that it wasn't the same variety after all. After some investigating, they discovered the original seed producer had sold the variety to another company, and the original seed is no longer available in the U.S. Carine admits there are other Charentais cultivars available here, but to her they're merely cantaloupes – not real Charentais (lol). Naturally, she started looking for the seed in France, where there are dozens of options. The only problem? None of the companies would ship to the U.S. So Carine went to France to get the real Sivan melon seeds. That's real commitment. Aren't we lucky! And yes, this melon seed drama all unfolds during the slower months of winter, so really... it's melons on the mind for all year round.
Melon Timeline
- Order seeds in the winter.
- Sow seeds in March.
- Seedlings grow for one month in the greenhouse.
- Transplant seedlings into the ground (and cover with row crop cover for the first succession: protects from Spring’s cool nights and pesky cucumber beetles!)
- After that, they plant new seedlings in the ground every two weeks for a total of seven successions. This is how we get melons to enjoy ALL summer long from June to September!
- Carine and Robert are just wrapping up harvest of their first succession of melons. The second succession is ripening up, and with this weeks’ heat, it’s all coming at once!
This week, we’re featuring a melon that we know not everyone loves. From what we’ve seen, you either love it or you hate it. The Melonade melon kind of breaks your brain. Its netted skin and orange flesh make you think it'll be sweet like a cantaloupe. Instead, you're met with a unique, refreshing flavor that's sweet and tart, like lemonade! We love it, and maybe you will too. It may grow on you! That's what we love doing – introducing the fan club to new things. :)
