Family is still sellin' melons

GREEN RIVER — Greg Vetere allows that it's been "a pretty good year" here in the melon capital of the world.

It hasn't been perfect. There was a 40-acre plot that got some kind of disease nobody had ever seen before and another 100 acres that got too much water early in the season.

But such is life in the melon-growing business.

At least Wall Street had nothing to do with it.

The rest of the crop has come in fresh, ripe and sweet as ever, producing the usual several hundred thousand melons that win praise far and wide.

"I don't know if we're the melon capital of the world or not," says Vetere. "But I'll put our melons up against anybody."

Ever since Eisenhower was in office, the Vetere family has been growing melons in Green River.

Greg's father, Jay, started the enterprise after getting out of the service and moving back home. Jay was inspired by memories of his childhood when his father grew melons on the family farm and found buyers for them as far away as Price and Sunnyside.

Something about the long summers, warm nights and slightly alkaline soil produced watermelons so sweet it was like somebody added sugar.

In 1958, Jay Vetere set up the stand in town that is still operating 51 years later.

In 1979, they put up another stand by the Chevron station on the west end of town next to the freeway exit.

I stopped at the newer stand by the Chevron and asked Charle Vetere, Greg's cousin, the question Veteres have been asked since 1951.

"Which one's the best melon?"

"Oh," smiled Charle, looking fondly at the hundred of so melons on display as she delivered the answer Veteres have being giving since 1951: "Everyone and anyone."

Along with the competition, Vetere's stands have been up and running since July. They hit their peak during Green River's annual Melon Days in mid-September, and if the weather holds, they'll make it at least to Halloween and maybe a few days after that.

"Then we'll be out of the melon business for another year," says Greg.

He and his brother, Tim, planted about 225 acres of melons of all varieties this year, he said. Their father, a man Greg calls "the best there is at picking watermelons," is still involved in the family operation but with some limitations due to an accident four or five years ago when he lost an arm in a corn chopper.

It's their father, Greg insists, who "keeps us going. As long as he's around, we'll keep raising quality melons for sure."

As with everything, there's more to producing sweet melons than you'd think.

Picking them at the right time is vital, for one thing.

The Veteres will pick no vine before its time.

"We go for quality," says Greg. "We don't push anything. We don't use too much fertilizer. We train our pickers carefully. We guarantee everything we sell. We always have, and we always will."