{"id":25189,"date":"2018-06-06T16:06:19","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T23:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/?p=25189"},"modified":"2018-06-06T16:06:19","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T23:06:19","slug":"american-watermelon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/american-watermelon\/","title":{"rendered":"All American Watermelon Summer Traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/images\/watrmelo.jpg\" alt=\"img\" width=\"650\" height=\"339\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Although the majority of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/farms\/california-watermelon.html\">watermelons grown<\/a> and purchased in the California are seedless, they need to keep growing some with seeds for \u00a0festivals and events in which watermelon seed-spitting contests are a tradition.<\/p>\n<h2>Watermelon Growing in California<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0Statewide, watermelons are planted from December to early July. Limited supplies of California watermelons are available beginning in May. Production peaks in August, and the season ends in November.<\/li>\n<li>When taking one of your favorite California road trips, look for melons growing in fields in Central Valley and Southern California\u00a0counties: Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Kern, Tulare, Imperial and Riverside.<\/li>\n<li>The State of California is one of the nation&#8217;s top 4 growers of watermelons.<\/li>\n<li>Texas, Florida, Georgia and California produce approx. 69% of all watermelons grown in the U.S.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><a href=\"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/festivals\/california-watermelon-festivals.html\">Watermelon Fun Has Begun!<\/a><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>This Father&#8217;s Day BBQ is a great time to include watermelon desserts.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/fairs\/san-diego-fair.html\">San Diego County Fair<\/a>\u00a0through July 4, 2018 includes daily watermelon seed-spitting contests, a tradition year after year.<\/li>\n<li>Slice of Chico watermelon festival is July 13-14.<\/li>\n<li>L.A.&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/festivals\/watermelon-festival.html\">Watermelon Festival<\/a> takes place July 28-29.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/events\/4thofjuly\/watermelon.html\">4th of July festivals<\/a> throughout the state (just 4 weeks away) include watermelon games and contests.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Picking a Watermelon<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Look for firm, symmetrical melons free from cuts or bruises.<\/li>\n<li>Lift it up &#8212; it should be heavy since most its weight is water.<\/li>\n<li>Turn it over and look for a creamy, yellow spot where it sat on its belly on the ground and ripened under the sun.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Types of Watermelons<\/h2>\n<p>Unless you prefer seeds, you&#8217;ll probably pick a seedless watermelon this year like 80-85% of consumers do. Here are a few seedless varieties:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fandango<\/li>\n<li>Super Cool<\/li>\n<li>Nova<\/li>\n<li>Laurel<\/li>\n<li>Wonderland<\/li>\n<li>Fire Cracker<\/li>\n<li>Quality<\/li>\n<li>Ultra Cool<\/li>\n<li>Millionaire<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although the majority of watermelons grown and purchased in the California are seedless, they need to keep growing some with seeds for \u00a0festivals and events in which watermelon seed-spitting contests are a tradition. Watermelon Growing in California \u00a0Statewide, watermelons are planted from December to early July. Limited supplies of California watermelons are available beginning in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[29],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25189"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25190,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25189\/revisions\/25190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}