Leave your melon out at room temperature to ripen. Once the melon is slightly soft at the stem end place gently in the refrigerator. After the melon has been cut, place in an air tight container and refrigerate.
Over the years we’ve carefully selected varieties of melons we’ve found to be the most productive, disease resistant, sweet and flavorful varieties that we can grow in our valley. We select smaller varieties that are most appropriately sized for packing in CSA boxes.
Butterscotch: This small, round melon weighs between one and two pound. It has a light green rind with orange flesh that is green near the rind. The green portion of the flesh is edible as well, and sweet. The butterscotch melon gets its name due to its flavor—sweet like butterscotch!
Sun Jewel Melons: This is a small melon with a foot-ball shape, bright yellow rind with white stripes and slightly ridged. When you cut it open, you’ll find white flesh that is crisp and sweet. This melon goes well with other fruits in a fruit salad, can be pickled and eaten as a condiment, or you could wrap it with prosciutto and enjoy it as an appetizer.
Sweet Sarah Cantaloupe: Sweet Sarah has a lot going for her. Sarah melons have a smoother, finely netted rind. The flesh is a typical orange cantaloupe color and has sweet flavorful flesh. We like the flavor of this cantaloupe because it is consistently tasty and doesn’t have much of the “musky” flavor other cantaloupe varieties may have.
French Orange Melon: This is one of our prized varieties that has developed a following over the years. These small melons are a cross between a cantaloupe and a French Charentais melon which is known to be more aromatic. French orange melons tend to be smaller than the Sweet Sarah melons, have a more coarsely netted rind, and sometimes have slightly green striping on the exterior. The flesh of a French orange melon is deeper orange colored, deliciously sweet, and very aromatic.
Canary: Canary melons have bright yellow rinds that hide an ivory flesh that is the same consistency as a ripe pear. This oval melon is mildly sweet and tangy, and averages about four or five pounds.
Sun Jewel: The pith and seeds of the Sun Jewel melon are edible, and sweet besides! Due to its medium level of sweetness, the sun jewel melon is great in both sweet and savory dishes. This melon goes well with cucumber, mint, ginger, citrus, berries, lychee, shrimp, coconut milk, feta cheese and chili powder.
Sweet Sarah Cantaloupe: This melon is great to eat by itself, or with a scoop of ice cream or custard. It is best served cold, and doesn’t cook well. Sweet Sarah is a wonderful addition to salads, and if you want to try something a little more savory, wrap the chunks of melon in a piece of prosciutto! Other ingredients this melon pairs well with are feta and goat cheese, almonds and hazelnuts, mint, citrus and cured pork.
Canary: This melon is great in soups and salads! You can also blend it up into popsicles, sorbets, or granitas, but you may want to add a little sugar to enhance the flavor. Canary melons go great with other flavorful melons, as well as citrus, ginger, honey, nuts, hot chiles and herbs such as basil, mint, and cilantro.
Growing Information: Every year we watch and wait for just the right time to start picking melons—too soon and they won’t be optimally flavorful or sweet, wait too long and we might lose them.
