Farmer’s Market: Melon man finds fans at market

Around our farmer’s market, Jack Lemons is affectionately known as “The Melon Man.”

He brings superior juicy, ripe melons from his farm in St. David and he’s been doing so for weeks now as they ripen.

Jack’s farm, Supernatural Organics, is on 40 acres fed with artesian wells and supplemented with San Pedro River water. With the help of another family, Jack gets a jump on the season by utilizing greenhouses to start seeds earlier than he’d be able to sowing straight into the fields.

Jack has a small co-op of organic growers that depends on him to bring their produce to market along with his own. This spirit of one farmer helping another is one Jack has known literally his whole life. He started on his family’s farm, later moving to Hawaii where he raised organic papaya, avocados and pineapple and started a solar drying facility. Now that he’s back to the family-sized farm, there’s little time to develop another solar powered drying facility, but “at least we eat well,” he said.

Supernatural Organics farm began as an alfalfa field. This brought benefits to Jack as an organic grower. Alfalfa sends roots deep into the soil creating canals to aid future irrigation. It also binds nitrogen to the soil thereby reducing the need for amendments to subsequent crops. Best of all for Lemons though, these fields never employed chemicals. This, coupled with the fact that no commercial fields are nearby, means he doesn’t have chemicals in his soil or as overspray from adjacent fields.

Jack brings a variety of organic produce each week that varies with the season. Lately, it’s his melons, tomatoes, peppers, four varieties of cucumbers, onions and Mexican gray squash (a tasty option for summer squash lovers).

These offers and observations came while waiting my turn with the melon man and his simple, old-fashioned scale.

”This place, this market is real nice with all the people.” “I buy from him all the time, you won’t be sorry!” Poking fun at the varied sizes of sugar baby watermelons, a shopper pointed to the largest row and said, “I think I’ll take one of these sugar toddlers.” When another shopper murmured, “I don’t know how to pick.” The woman ahead of her said, “Here he is, he’ll help you, go ahead,” and switched places in line.

You’ll find Jack to the south side of the main entrance to the market.

If you go

Green Valley Farmer’s Market runs from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. every Wednesday at the Green Valley Village, Esperanza Boulevard and La Canada Drive.