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•October 7, 2015•

Shawn Mowry of Windsor is the watermelon man.

When he showed the folks at church the 127 pound watermelon he grew in his garden this year, Marlene Brotherton had to take a picture.

”We were all really impressed that Shawn had grown a larger watermelon than before ,” she said.

Two years ago Mowry harvested a 109  pound watermelon. “It started out as a personal goal to grow a bigger one,” he said of the effort which came up short last year when his vines died.

“I had two seeds from the 109 pounder come up this year,” he continued, pointing out that the vine containing the monster melon produced two at first, but one was damaged by mice and died.

By the end of July the fruit of the prize winner was as big as Mowry’s thumb, then he started seriously watering.

I placed a flag at the end of the plant and watered every day. “I’d go out, turn the sprinkler on, go inside and set the oven timer for an hour and let it soak,” he said, noting the water from his well made the watermelon grow noticeably every day.

“I set the flag a quarter inch from the watermelon, and it grew to meet it each day,” he continued. “It was fun to watch it grow.”     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.