When it's in season, we generally don’t need to be asked twice when it comes to eating our own weight in watermelon. It is one of the great joys of late summer. and we are always on the hunt for the great, short-season adapted cultivars. People are continuously incredulous when we bring one to a potluck or picnic here in the Pacific Northwest, saying “I never thought you could grow watermelons here”, but as is true with all the heat-loving vegetables, there have been people in cooler, northern climes selecting for early maturing, cool weather tolerant traits for many many generations. Janosik comes to us from Poland by way of Italy and it was a huge success for us at the home farm. The fruits, with dark green rinds, bright yellow flesh, and wonderfully sweet refreshing flavor were quite large by northern standards, averaging probably around 10-12# with some tipping the scales at up to 16#, and plants yielding between 30-40# of fruit each! Texture is VERY important to us when it comes to watermelon and Janosik delivers just the perfect combination of crisp and grainy (never smooth or mealy!) flesh. The name refers to a real-life Slovak highwayman from the late 1600s who became a semi-legendary Robinhood-like hero of Slovak, Polish, and Hungarian folklore robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. His name has become a symbol of resistance to oppression in central Europe and was used by an anti-Nazi resistance group in the Slovak National Uprising. Just goes to show, there are all sorts of things you can learn from a seed, and that’s a name we can get behind. 80-85 days. UO
