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During the past three and a half years, I have learned that there’s a story waiting to be told; all I have to do is look and listen. That is exactly how this one came to be.

I had already returned from Pleasant Garden’s summer farmers’ market last Saturday when it struck me that the watermelons Dr. Wilson Elkins had carefully packed in straw must have been the fabled Lednums I had read about, so I turned right around and went back.

It was almost closing time, but he was still there. Elkins confirmed that his were the special local variety and pointed to the other end of the picnic shelter, “His are bigger and prettier, you should take a picture of them.”

Edward Moser had a 40-pound Lednum sitting on the table and three others spaced across the bed of his pickup. “They are not commercial watermelons because you can’t stack them,” Moser said.

Buster Holt chimed in, “If you are driving along and hit a bump, they will pop, just explode.”

Moser, Holt and Elkins each bought their $12 per pound
white seeds at Julian Milling Co. All three men agreed that the variety lives up to its claim to fame: “the sweetest melon grown.”

These round watermelons were developed perhaps a century ago by J.E. Lednum on his Pleasant Garden Road farm. According to a News & Record story Jim Schlosser wrote five years ago, Lednum melons are a cross between the round Stone Mountain and the oblong Klechly Sweet.

Elkins has a patch of Lednums on the land of their namesake. Moser’s melons may be gone by the time this story appears, but Holt expects to begin harvesting them.

The summer farmers’ market sponsored by the Town of Pleasant Garden is open 7 a.m. to noon every Saturday until Oct. 3.

A variety of vendors display just-picked blackberries, blueberries, corn, cucumbers, eggplants, green beans, peppers, potatoes, squash and tomatoes.

Shoppers also may find home-baked goods, stained glass, wooden toys and sturdy lawn furniture.

Nancy Jo Smith, grandmother of 12, lives in her childhood home in the center of Pleasant Garden. She enjoys piecing genealogy, history and quilts.