Hermiston melons ripening

Published 12:34 pm Saturday, July 10, 2004

HERMISTON – Some tap it. Some hold it to their chests and feel for the vibration of their heartbeat.

“Everyone has their own philosophy for picking a melon,” said Angela Anderson, a clerk for Walchli’s Hermiston Melon Co. on Highway 207. “I let them do what they want to do unless they ask me for help.”

Anderson said her stand is quiet right now – but when the watermelons arrive late next week it’ll be chaos. That’s when the melon harvest will be in full swing. From then until the end of summer, at Anderson’s stand, hundreds of people traveling across the state on Interstate 84 will stop by for the fresh, Hermiston-brand melons.

And, at least 20 times a day, someone will ask Anderson how to correctly pick a ripe melon. That’s because harvesting watermelons is nearly an art form, and even the professionals require years of practice before they get it right consistently. Steve Walker, for instance, has been growing melons for more than 30 years. He has about 60 acres in Stanfield and Hermiston and produces 45 tons of melons per acre each season.

As he explains it, one must have an eye for the subtle shades of green and yellow if they want the best tasting melon for their table.

“See the stripes down the side,” he said, running his finger along the trademark watermelon markings. “We pick them by the stripe. The lighter it is, the more yellowish, the riper the melon. The whole melon will get just a little bit lighter color.”

The color change is so slight that he admits “even the guys who pick them have a hard time, especially in the beginning of the season.”

Walker and his three-man crew started their harvest Thursday, and for the next few days will likely pick just a few melons to send to local produce stands. The end of next week will be when the picking gets serious.

“It’ll be a little bit of juggling,” he said as the men pick one field only to have another quickly fill with ripened melons that also need attention. The longer melons go unpicked once they’re in their prime, the faster they decline in quality.

A good-tasting melon, Walker said, is one that looks deep pink inside all the way from the middle to the rind. If there is any white, the melon will taste sweet, like a cucumber rather than flavorful and sugary – an end result achieved locally because of the cool nights which allow the melons to store more of their sugars than they use to grow.

It is that characteristic of local melons that gives them their glowing reputation, and the city its trademark. Hermiston, however, has only a handful of watermelon growers who generate the area’s $3 million to $4 million in melon sales, according to George Clough, a research horticulturist with Oregon State University’s Hermiston Extension Office.

“There really isn’t any room for more growers,” he said. “Our growers here already produce more than the distributors can handle, and they have long relationships with the buyers. Every two to three years, people will say there is a lot of money to be made and they’ll grow them and then find that nobody will buy them.”

Most melons grown locally are distributed in Portland and Seattle, Walker said. There is no guarantee that melons in local supermarkets are locally-grown.

“They’re aren’t a lot of stores that will buy direct any more,” he said. “They go through all the warehouses.”

Some, though, do remain in town. Like at the Walchli’s produce stand.

There, Anderson explained to folks who want to know that picking a good-tasting, ripe melon is easy. She advised they look for a yellow spot on the melon’s belly, a light coloring overall, and, yes, a particular sound.

But not with a fist or on someone’s chest.

“You want to hold the melon away from you and hit it with the palm of your hand,” she said. “You should hear a good hollow sound.”