Do you have a favorite fruit?

[Jeff Wrangler]

Not really a polling question, I guess, though it could be if people were asked to pick from a list of fruits. Anyway, I got to thinking about this after supper while I was having dessert, a big bowl of fresh local strawberries in milk, and I decided that, hands down, strawberries are my favorite fruit.

[Front-Ranger]

I guess I might say watermelon, if it's perfectly ripe.

Strawberries are great too. I really love strawberry lemonade, even more than raspberry lemonade.

There is a white strawberry, called pineberry. I only know about it because it grows in my garden, planted by the previous owners. It is even sweeter than regular strawberries. I also have the red kind growing by my front door. A third kind of strawberry that grows here is the alpine strawberry. It has so many seeds and very little flesh.

[Front-Ranger]

There was an article about Driscoll's in the New Yorker a few years ago. It was interesting.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Strawberries are great too. I really love strawberry lemonade, even more than raspberry lemonade.

I like both. Plus, I think it was many years ago on Roundup that OCD introduced me to raspberry iced tea, and to my surprise (because I don't like iced tea) I really liked it.

[Jeff Wrangler]

There was an article about Driscoll's in the New Yorker a few years ago. It was interesting.

I remember that article.

[serious crayons]

I'd say my standard year-round favorite is blueberries. Cherries are also really good but much more seasonal. (I've been splurging on them lately because I don't think they're in season but the ones in the store are really tasty, if expensive.) Raspberries are good but you have to eat them almost immediately. Blackberries are hit and miss. Nectarines and plums are good when in season.

I like strawberries too, but tend to get sick of them by this time of year because they come early and in big boxes. I actually don't like watermelon or really any melon, but like everything else I'd probably eat it if someone served it to me.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I don't care for watermelon either. I took a dislike to it when I was a kid. I think it was the seeds. I tended to not like anything with seeds or pits. (For example, I was perfectly fine with products like spaghetti sauce, but I wouldn't eat an actual tomato.) When I was a kid I wouldn't eat cantaloupe; I don't remember why. In recent years I've tried it and find it OK, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get it and eat it. I admit I have tended to buy the chunks of already cleaned cantaloupe. Even I consider that dubious, but I hate buying a whole melon. Either most of it would go to waste before I could eat it all, or I'd get thoroughly sick of it trying to eat it all before it would spoil.

[Front-Ranger]

They grow seedless watermelons now and personal size ones. I suspect the real problem is that your area of the country isn't a good melon growing one. Melons need hot days, cool nights, and abundant sunshine. Perhaps melons are imported from Southern states and Mexico into your area but would it be worth it? I would like to see more processed foods from melons so the market could grow more. They've done this with pomegranates. There's pomegranate juice everywhere. You're starting to see watermelon waters, juices, coolers, and syrups. I'd love to be able to buy frozen watermelon concentrate.

[Jeff Wrangler]

They grow seedless watermelons now and personal size ones. I suspect the real problem is that your area of the country isn't a good melon growing one. Melons need hot days, cool nights, and abundant sunshine. Perhaps melons are imported from Southern states and Mexico into your area but would it be worth it? I would like to see more processed foods from melons so the market could grow more. They've done this with pomegranates. There's pomegranate juice everywhere. You're starting to see watermelon waters, juices, coolers, and syrups. I'd love to be able to buy frozen watermelon concentrate.

No, that's not the case. In season, every farm stand in Lancaster County has home-grown watermelons and mountains and mountains of locally grown cantaloupes. At least before climate change became an issue, hot days, cool nights, and abundant sunshine pretty well describes summer in the farming regions here away from the cities.

Today I went to our Reading Terminal Farmers' Market. It was a real disappointment; I don't expect I'll be shopping there much anymore. The Amishman from whom I used to buy wonderful sweet corn and Beefsteak tomatoes now sells only packaged snack foods. There is just really no place to buy local produce anymore. There is a produce shop, but you have no idea where their vegetables come from. Last summer I got some acceptable sweet corn from them, but it's not the same. The corn and tomatoes and other fresh vegetables the Amishman used to sell came from Lancaster County.

There are still good stands for fresh meats, fish, and poultry, but not for produce anymore.

(Incidentally, the opening A in "Amish" is not a long A. It's pronounced like the A in "Ah-hah!" A lot of tourists get that wrong, or, at any rate, they used to.)

[Front-Ranger]

Nevertheless, I looked up the annual rainfall for your area and it is about 41.3 inches. Rainfall for the melon-growing area of Colorado is about 12 inches. Where there is rain, there are clouds. We also have 258 days of sunshine as opposed to Philly which has about 207. That can make a big difference.