![\"Bradford-daughter\"](\"https:\/\/clemson.world\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Bradford-daughter.jpg\")
<\/a>Nat Bradford eased his pickup into a parking space at Moe Joe Coffee. He stepped out, straightening into a lanky, lean-faced guy in work-worn jeans and shirt, logoed visor and Blundstone boots, looking like what he is: a son of the soil. He had something for me.<\/h4>\nBradford dropped the tailgate, leaned in and wrapped his arms around his family\u2019s past and future.
\nIt was a watermelon the size of a toddler. Dark green, slightly ribbed along its oblong flanks, weighing about 30 pounds, a classic Bradford watermelon.
\n\u201cThis is for you,\u201d said Bradford. \u201cIf I picked right, this will be the sweetest, best-tasting watermelon you have ever eaten.\u201d
\nThat night, my wife and I had watermelon for supper. We had to eat half of it just to get the rest into the refrigerator. The sweetness was superb, but it was the flavor that won out. The melon tasted like the watermelons I ate when I was a kid in the \u201950s. That is the Bradford signature \u2014 a flavor of memories.<\/p>\n
Big watermelons, big dreams<\/h3>\n
The Bradfords have been growing their watermelons for more than 170 years. In all those years, it\u2019s doubtful they made enough from their melons to buy a new truck. Most of the melons were given away to friends and neighbors in Sumter, where the sandy soil is well suited for a melon patch.
\nOthers did make money. In the late 1800s and early 1900s Bradford melons were sold commercially, as was seed to gardeners. Along came melons that were easier to grow, store and ship, pushing the big green melons back to family patches cared for by seed keepers who passed on their know-how and best seeds from generation to generation.
\nBradford is the eighth generation in his line to take up the hoe. This time there\u2019s more at stake than a good harvest. Bradford is sowing the seeds for his family\u2019s future. He\u2019s also determined that the Bradford watermelon will help to make the world a better place for thirsty people.
\nWith two year\u2019s experience growing melons part-time, the Bradfords are making a move. This summer, Nat and Bette Bradford and their five children will resettle from Seneca to Sumter. They are returning to the Bradford family farm to grow a life on 12 acres. They will raise watermelons and other crops sustainably, without irrigation and chemicals. They will sell some fresh watermelons and use the rest to make watermelon rind pickles, watermelon molasses and distilled spirits. Seeds from the best melons will be saved.
\nMoney from fresh market sales will support Watermelons for Water. In its third year, the family\u2019s foundation helps people in need of clean, dependable water. A project the Bradfords fund in Tanzania is well underway.
\nIt\u2019s a big dream, but Bradford watermelons are big melons.<\/p>\n
Hanging on by a tendril<\/h3>\n
Nobody knows how he came to be called \u201cChief,\u201d the man who was Nat Bradford\u2019s great grandfather, Linwood Bonneau Bradford. \u201cI\u2019ve known about him from family stories, but I did not meet him,\u201d says Bradford. Family stories tend to deal with family doings \u2014 births, deaths, marriages, vacations \u2014 and not about growing watermelons. Fortunately, someone wrote about Chief and his watermelons.<\/p><\/div> [youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ljFJJ4kcNqU?rel=0] Life goes on, ready or not. Bette and Nat married. They started a family and Eco Art, a landscape design and installation business. Summer 2013, Bradford planted two small plots, one in Sumter, the other in Seneca. He couldn\u2019t have picked a worse year. It was one of the wettest years on record. Vegetables rotted in fields. Gov. Nikki Haley declared a disaster for growers. Bradford was nervous, but he trusted in the ways passed on to him. Until they\u2019re settled in Sumter, Bradford will continue his landscaping business. Like with most family farms, a job in town is essential to make ends meet. The goal is to go all in. Nat Bradford eased his pickup into a parking space at Moe Joe Coffee. He stepped out, straightening into a lanky, lean-faced guy in work-worn jeans and shirt, logoed visor and Blundstone boots, looking like what he is: a son of the soil. He had something for me. Bradford dropped the tailgate, leaned in and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":13403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[132,210,422,582,1230,1485,1816,1822,1896,2087,2557,2891],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-13455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-agriculture","tag-anson-mills","tag-bradford-watermelon","tag-charleston","tag-farming","tag-high-wire-distillery","tag-local-foods","tag-longwood-gardens","tag-mccradys","tag-nikki-haley","tag-sculpture-spring-2015","tag-sustainability"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/04\/Bradford-watermelon.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13455"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>It\u2019s hard to imagine a melon that immense becoming a melon of mystery. The Bradford went from being one of the most popular melons to near extinction.
\nBy the 1850s, the Bradford watermelon had developed a reputation for sweetness and for its edible rind. The crisp meat of the melon, ranging from pale pink to deep red imbedded with white seeds, was a sugary treat to eat fresh. The high-sugar content also made it a favorite for making watermelon molasses. A thin white rind, which turns translucent amber in cooking, made delicious watermelon pickles. \u201cThey are very nice and will keep for two years,\u201d writes Maria Massey Barringer, in Dixie Cookery, or How I Managed My Table for Twelve Years: A Practical Cook-Book for Southern Housekeepers.<\/em>
\nA melon of such quality did not just appear. It was the offspring of good stock and careful breeding. Nathaniel Napoleon Bradford was part of agrarian bloom in the South. Farmer-experimenters shared seeds and sought to raise fruits, grains and vegetables that were both hardy and flavorful.
\nAgricultural societies, such as the Pendleton Farmers Society to which Thomas Green Clemson belonged, published journals detailing their efforts and observations. Nurseries offered catalogs of their stock. More than simple inventories, nurserymen described and critiqued plants.
\nThe research made its way to the marketplace. The Bradford became a late-season market melon sold throughout the South. It was a popular melon, but flawed in the eyes of truck-produce shippers who sought to expand their sales to other regions. Breeders developed \u201cboxcar melons\u201d with \u201crhino-rinds\u201d that made them tough enough to be stacked nine high without crushing. The bowling ball watermelons lumped in cartons at grocery stores are the latest varieties bred more for commerce than flavor.
\nThe Bradford withered in popularity. Once grown in seven states, by 1925 it was grown only in South Carolina, where it hung on by a tendril. One of our nation\u2019s founding watermelons would have been lost had it not been for one man.<\/p>\nFathers and sons, and coming full circle<\/h3>\n
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\nClemson Extension agent Jim Eleazer turned out to be a skilled writer, having a book published, 50 Years Along the Roadside<\/i>. For 25 years before World War II, Eleazer was the Sumter County agent, where he became friends with Chief, who grew his late-season watermelons as a hobby.
\n\u201cOthers couldn\u2019t do much with late melons,\u201d Eleazer wrote. \u201cDiseases would get \u2019em. But Chief had been mixing and selecting his melons for years, and had gotten one with considerable resistance to late ills.\u201d
\nThe rest of Eleazer\u2019s story dwells on Chief\u2019s generosity, filling the agent\u2019s car with watermelons. But for Nat Bradford, the few sentences about his great-grandfather being a seedsman would become a guiding principle for his own approach to growing plants.
\nChief\u2019s son Theron \u2014 Nat\u2019s grandfather \u2014 would play another part. He would teach young hands to fulfill the dream.
\n\u201cI called him \u2018Paa Paa,\u2019\u201d says Bradford, who loved to work with his grandfather. They would plant and tend the vegetables and flowers. Nat, more than his four siblings, took to gardening. He soaked up what Paa Paa knew about making things grow.
\n[pullquote]The Bradford principles rest on abiding with natural forces, caring for the land and observing a divine plan for abundance.[\/pullquote]
\nNat, the one with the \u201cgreen gene,\u201d as his family calls a gift for growing, learned to plant at least a mile away from neighboring melons, to prevent cross-pollination. Save seeds from the very best melons, preserving growth traits. Don\u2019t irrigate or apply chemicals; instead cultivate plants suited to local conditions. Care for the soil, and the soil will care for you.
\nPaa Paa\u2019s son \u2014 Nat Bradford\u2019s father \u2014 left the farm to become a doctor. When he returned he moved his family to the city of Sumter. A dermatologist, Dr. Bradford\u2019s connection to farming was treating the consequences \u2014 cutting away skin cancers from sun-rayed hands, arms, cheeks and necks. His children, like so many others, moved farther away from farm communities. Nat, a solid student and able athlete, went off to college, looking for a future. He did not know it yet, but he would come full circle.<\/p>\nLandscape architecture and love<\/h3>\n
<\/a>Clemson was a good fit for Bradford. He found a major that nurtured his passion for growing plants. He found sport that matched his enjoyment of teamwork. He found love.
\n\u201cI tried a couple of majors, and then I took a course in horticulture, and I knew this is what I wanted to do,\u201d says Bradford. \u201cI was made for rowing and set my sights on the Olympics.\u201d
\nWhile his dream of going for the gold faded, romance bloomed.
\n\u201cMy friends said he liked me,\u201d says Bette Ritchie Bradford \u201997. \u201cI knew about him as the guy who always talked about his family\u2019s watermelons.\u201d
\nBefore they could begin their lives together, Bradford had his degree to complete.
\nMajoring in landscape architecture, Bradford had an internship at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. There, he worked on his senior exit paper.
\n\u201cI wanted to do it on the Bradford watermelons,\u201d says Bradford. \u201cI knew about Chief \u2014 we had Jim Eleazer\u2019s book \u2014 but I didn\u2019t know for sure much more.\u201d
\nThe gardens had a collection of old horticulture journals and catalogs. Bradford came across a document from the 1860s. It stunned him.
\nIt was a vegetable critique, listing best choices for home gardens for that period. Bradford looked for watermelons. He found his name.
\n\u201cOh my gosh, I said to myself,\u201d remembers Bradford \u201cCould it be the same Bradford watermelon? What was the connection? Why didn\u2019t we hear about this in the family growing up?\u201d
\nBradford began searching for more information. He hit a dead end.
\n\u201cThis was before Google,\u201d says Bradford. \u201cI couldn\u2019t get online and see if there was some connection there or not.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Finding the family treasure<\/h3>\n
\nTwelve years passed. Meanwhile, Google blinked awake, ready to answer a world of questions.
\nIn 2012 Bradford went to a sustainable agriculture conference in Greenville, reviving his quest. Was the watermelon mentioned in the 1860s the same one that his family had been growing?
\n\u201cI knew in my heart of hearts it was, and now I had Google,\u201d says Bradford. He didn\u2019t find the answer. But he found someone who did.
\nDavid Shields, a professor at the University of South Carolina, is an international expert on Southern food history, particularly agriculture journals, catalogs, cookbooks and seed lists.
\n\u201cHe had his own list of vegetables that shaped the food waves of America and, in particular, in the Southeast,\u201d says Bradford. \u201cI figured this guy must know something, and so I sent him an email and introduced myself.\u201d
\nBradford hit the send key after midnight. When he woke he had mail.
\n\u201cI had an email waiting for me at nine in the morning with this big, \u2018Oh my gosh. I\u2019ve been looking for this watermelon for the past 10 years,\u2019\u201d recalls Bradford.
\nShields knew the heritage of the Bradford melon, providing new information. \u201cHe had every one of my forefathers mentioned, and who had handed down to who (sic). I didn\u2019t even have that information. It was really cool.\u201d
\n[pullquote]Bradford learned his family watermelon was dropped from sight in 1922, when an Augusta, Georgia, seed company stopped carrying the seed.[\/pullquote]
\n\u201cI know our family never shared in any of the commercial success of the watermelon because it was always kept local,\u201d says Bradford. \u201cThe seeds had spread, migrated north and then lost appeal.\u201d
\nShields wanted to know from Bradford one thing \u2014 the only thing that mattered. Were there any Bradford watermelon seeds?
\nBradford had some, but he would need seed from other years to blend the genetics for top quality melons. He went to Sumter to search where\u00a0Paa Paa may have saved the seed.
\n\u201cI went back to his old house that winter and found where he was keeping his seeds. It was the last of our Bradford watermelon seeds other than the ones that I\u2019d been keeping for the last 20 or so years. He saved those from 1990 to \u201993, and that\u2019s\u00a0really when I took over to breed and keep the line going.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Carrying gifts to the Holy City<\/h3>\n
\n\u201cWe plant 12 seeds in a hill,\u201d says Bradford. \u201cThen when they first sprout up, we thin them down to about five or six of the strongest plants, and then from there we thin them down to two per hill. It sounds wasteful, but what we did, in effect, is we selected naturally for the two strongest plants, per hill, for a cold, wet summer in South Carolina. That\u2019s something that modern agriculture doesn\u2019t account for, doesn\u2019t take into account in their food model. But it works. We had over 100-percent yield, 465 watermelons out of 440 plants, which was tremendous.\u201d
\nDelighted by the abundant harvest, Shields expected to see South Carolina\u2019s heritage watermelon return to markets and kitchens. Bradford, unfortunately, had made other plans\u00a0for the melons. They were bound for a distiller\u00a0in Alabama.
\nShields is devoted to restoring the crops and foods that nourished and flavored the South, especially the South Carolina Lowcountry. There is hardly a Charleston chef who hasn\u2019t consulted Shields on vegetables, grains and meats of the Carolina Rice Kitchen, the cooking and ingredients of coastal Carolina. Shields called a friend who could save the watermelons from leaving South Carolina.
\nThe friend, founder-owner of Anson Mills, has restored the good name of flavorful and nutritious grits and revived Carolina Gold rice, a dietary and economic staple of the coast until rice cultivation collapsed in the Carolinas. Glenn Roberts persuaded Bradford that there was a far better destination than Alabama.
\n[pullquote]Bradford hauled a trailer carrying 300 melons to the Holy City.\u00a0 Fifty of the melons \u2014 their seeds to be saved \u2014 went to McCrady\u2019s, Chef Sean Brock\u2019s highly rated restaurant in Charleston.[\/pullquote]\u00a0Bradford still gets a kick out of the photo where the chefs and staff stacked the melons on the stairs to the kitchen. The pulp was boiled down to make watermelon molasses, the rind made into pickles.
\nThe rest of the melons, selling for $20 apiece, sold out immediately.
\nChef Forrest Parker drove from Greenville to buy Bradfords. In a comment connected to a digital news story about the melons, Parker raved: \u201cI brought the first of these up to High Cotton Greenville from Charleston this morning. We tasted with the team this afternoon, and they were, in a word, revelatory. Completely fantastic. We all just sat there giggling like little kids. Just fantastic.\u201d
\nPraise from chefs will help spread the word about Bradford melons. The local foods and farm-to-table trend continues to grow. Still, fresh watermelons sales are a seasonal and risky moneymaker.<\/p>\n<\/a>From rind to seed: the road to sustainability<\/h3>\n
\nTo have that happen, Nat and Bette Bradford will use the whole melon \u2014 from rind to seed.
\nThe first of the Bradford family product line is watermelon-rind pickles. Other items soon will be available, including molasses and vinegar. Recently, High Wire Distillery in Charleston made a batch of watermelon brandy. Diversifying, Bradford collards will find a spot on the family farm. Other heritage produce is sure to follow.
\n\u201cHere, a gift,\u201d says Bradford, handing me a quart Mason jar of watermelon-rind pickles when I visited.
\nGrateful for the generosity, I counter with cash. Bette folds the money and nods thanks.
\nThere are no sustainable farms without sustainable farmers.
\nLearn more about Bradford watermelons.<\/a>
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\n<\/span><\/a><\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/div><\/div><\/em>
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\nPeter Kent is a news editor and writer for Clemson\u2019s Public Service Activities.<\/em>
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"