Watermelons!

What you see here is our host on the Hidden Harvest outing, Mark Nickerson, holding a tiny baby watermelon.
The workers, again with their faces and heads covered to protect them from the dirt and dust of the seeding process, are placing watermelon seeds in the tray by hand. Unlike the pepper seeds below that are placed on the top of the soil by machine, the watermelon seeds must be pressed exactly half way down in the pot and then covered by vermiculite.
Prime Time buys seedless watermelon seeds from Israel however, in order for these seeds to become more than blossoms, they must be pollinated. This is achieved by making every fifth seed a regular watermelon seed then, when the plants begin to blossom, bees are brought in to cross pollinate the plants.

A very big issue, as you might imagine, for farms like this one is labor. More and more laborers in this area are going into construction, landscape and hotel work. This county is 2nd in the nation in growth so there is an abundance of low level jobs in these fields. In addition to this problem, there is the extremely controverial bill before the Senate that is directed towards controlling illegal immigration. There is no question that some sort of control and reform should take place. It is unfortunate, however, that this heavy handed bill that appears to be concieved by someone from another planet is being presented as the first step towards a solution. Should it pass, we will all know it.