Jill Schramm/MDN Charles Weiser holds a melon from his garden Sept. 1. He continues to harvest muskmelon and watermelon for the Minot Farmers Market.

SURREY — Charles “Chuck” Weiser has been supplying farmers market customers with homegrown melons for more than 50 years.

One of the original organizers of the Minot Farmers Market, Weiser continues to sell watermelon, muskmelon and sometimes squash at the market, which has grown from several original members to more than 30 vendors in 52 years.

The popularity of farmers markets throughout those years means Weiser has sold a lot of melons over the years. He recalls selling out even at those early markets, which ran all day.

“It gives a small operator a place to sell, and it gives the people a chance to get really good produce,” he said.

A native of Hazelton, Weiser, 80, was assistant county agent with the Extension Service in Ward County in the early 1960s. He spent a brief time in Carson in Grant County before returning to Minot to join Bremer Bank as an agricultural lender. He held that job until retiring 17 years ago.

He and his wife, Marilyn, have lived near Surrey since 1976, where his flower displays draw tours of educators and school children as well as other local visitors.

“My mother was a flower gardener and I kind of picked it up,” he said.

He decided to try growing melons after reading an article about a melon project involving tribal members on a reservation near Mahnomen, Minnesota. He decided to try their method for growing melons in a cooler climate with a short season.

One of the secrets to success is clear plastic mulch, which heats the soil about 20 degrees, Weiser said.

“That gives you an early start,” he said. “Melons won’t grow unless it’s 70 (degrees).”

The second element in successfully growing melons in North Dakota involves starting plants in a greenhouse and transplanting them when the weather is warmer.

“You get about a month and a half jump on a normal season by the combination of the two,” Weiser said.

Weiser, who works seasonally at Lowe’s Garden Center in Minot, is able to utilize available space at the center to start his plants.

Once he started growing melons, he quickly realized he needed a market. Picked ripe, melons lose prime condition after three days.

“We had a lot of melons and you can’t just sell them off your back door. You’ve only got three days. You have to get them sold. We figured we needed a market, so we started the farmers market,” Weiser said.

He is the last remaining of the original members of Minot Farmers Market, although the family of organizer David Kopp still carries on the market tradition.

Weiser said the group ran informally for a few years. The first market was on a vacant lot on North Broadway, north of First Lutheran Church. The market moved to the North Dakota State Fairgrounds a couple of years later. After another several years, having grown to about 21 members, the market moved to Oak Park, where it remains today. Hours are Tuesdays from 4 to 7 p.m. and Thursdays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon, generally through October.

Weiser raises about 880 melon plants, which average three or four melons each. Each plant is hand-planted.

“At one time, we would hire the youth group at the church to come on a Saturday morning, and in three hours, we were done. Now I do it myself. It takes two to three days — three or four hours in the morning,” he said.

He seeds rye in the fall to serve as a windbreak in the spring, when wind can easily damage young melon plants. Rye strips also serve to drive on in the fall when harvesting melons.

“We’ve only lost the crop twice in 52 years, both times to hail. Hail is deadly on them. It takes out the leaves and then you don’t get any sugar in them,” he said.

Over the years, he said, he’s learned about the best weed control and the varieties that resist disease. On dry years like this year, he utilizes an irrigation well, hauling water about six miles.

“I hauled a little over 22,000 gallons,” Weiser said. “When you start to water, it’s an all-day job, from six in the morning til dark. I think I’ve watered it five times this year. Most years, we don’t do any watering.”

A warmer than usual year has put the crop ahead, Weiser added. The peak picking is normally around Labor Day, but this year it was two weeks earlier. Weiser might pick about 400 ripened melons a day at the height of the picking. The muskmelons are from 6 to 8 pounds . The yellow flesh watermelons range from 2 to 7 pounds.

The plants produce until the first frost, typically about Sept. 20. However, as of Labor Day, Weiser was seeing much of his crop already harvested.

Working with so many melons has tempered his appetite for them.

“I probably eat only two a year,” Weiser said. “But I have a lot of people that are big customers.”

He recalled one customer who would buy 10 melons a week to give away. A local business sometimes buys 40 to 50 to give way. Weiser also has given surplus to the local school lunch program, a Minot food pantry or sold to small groceries.

Weiser said melons that don’t sell or get donated quickly enough are disposed of because he won’t offer people inferior produce. To move melons when he has a pile of ripe ones, he holds a license to provide samples, which requires meeting strict health rules but does help sell product.

Because of the challenges of growing melons in North Dakota, large produces such as Weiser aren’t common at farmers markets. Weiser has advised at least one gardener who was interested in getting into melons and would love to help other newcomers get started to ensure melons continue at the farmers market once he retires, which won’t be soon.

“I’m getting ready for next year,” he said.

(Prairie Profile is a weekly feature profiling interesting people in our region. We welcome suggestions from our readers. Call Regional Editor Eloise Ogden at 857-1944 or call 1-800-735-3229. You also can send email suggestions to eogden@minotdailynews.com.)