Memorial Day weekend usually means cookouts, family gatherings, cold drinks and, if you’re lucky, a good watermelon on the table.
But if you’ve noticed the watermelon trucks moving along County Road 621 lately, there’s a local story behind them.
Those watermelons are coming from Wolf Island Farms, operated by Jim Barfield, a third-generation watermelon farmer whose family is originally from Felda, Florida. The melons are grown off U.S. 70 in the Lake Placid area, and this season the farm is using the warehouse facility at Happiness Farms Caladiums as part of its packing and shipping operation. Wolf Island Farms began growing exclusively watermelons in 2004. Before that, the farm also grew tomatoes, peppers and other produce.
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The watermelon season usually begins around April 10, but this year’s crop was delayed a few weeks because of cold weather.
The farm grows three seedless watermelon varieties: Big Jack, Rio Grande and Mira Monte. Watermelons are sold by size count, including 60-count, 45-count and 36-count. The average watermelon most people see in a grocery store is a 45-count melon, usually weighing about 13 to 17 pounds.
And while watermelon may look simple sitting on a picnic table, getting it there is not simple at all. This is still a hands-on crop. Plants are cut by hand. Watermelons are picked by hand. They are labeled, loaded and moved by crews working through the season. Wolf Island Farms has four full-time employees, but during watermelon season, that number grows to around 100.
Barfield said prices are higher this year because of several factors, including fuel costs, transportation challenges and added surcharges. He said new requirements that truck drivers speak English have reduced the number of available drivers. While he supports the objective, fewer drivers on the road means higher costs.
From Lake Placid, these watermelons travel far beyond Highlands County. Barfield said their melons are shipped as far north as Massachusetts and recently went as far west as Arizona.
So this Memorial Day, when you slice into a cold watermelon, it is worth knowing where it may have come from. Around here, that watermelon may have started in a field off U.S. 70, passed through a warehouse on County Road 621, and made its way to a holiday table somewhere across the country.
That’s agriculture. That’s Lake Placid. And that’s a pretty good story hiding inside a summer slice.