Davies family aim to recapture Big Melon crown for 2025 Chinchilla MelonFest

With just three melon growers left in Chinchilla, the Davies family say they are planning on ensuring the title of Big Melon stays local, with their crop of water melons now in the ground ahead of the 2025 MelonFest.

Davies family win Big Melon award

Chinchilla melon growers the Davies family have planted their crop of watermelons ahead of the upcoming MelonFest and have big plans to defend their Big Melon crown.

At last year’s MelonFest the family took home the Big Melon award with a behemoth 90kg watermelon.

Sandy and Bernie Davies have been growing watermelons for 36 years, beginning after the wool market collapsed in the 1990s leaving them looking for an alternative.

Bernie and Matty Jack Davies picking their famous watermelons

Sandy Davies said their melons were now in the ground and would be ready by the time the festival rolled around next year.

“We plant the giant melons late October, early November to harvest for the festival in February so it is a three month program,” she said.

“We are have started planting and are they are well underway, the plants so far are onto their third and fourth leaf and we planted a few different varieties this year.

“We have planted our own seeds and a couple of other seeds we have located, the seeds from our first place melon at the last festival we have given out through WoodAg and NutrientAg for the public to access and to people we know.

“I can’t give away all the secrets to a good melon, but you need a good soil which has been well prepared with fertilisers, then you need to look out for diseases and deficiencies in the plant weed, make sure the birds leave them alone and never pick them until the day of the competition because they are still growing.”

Davies family win Big Melon award

Ms Davies aid they were looking to continue on from last year’s success and keep the title within Chinchilla.

“It was 90kg last year and our aim for this year is to get to 100kg, that fella last year was still growing but we had to pick him on the day,” she said.

“There are only three local growers at the moment, the amount of growers has gone from 30 down to three so it’s in trouble as far as local growers are concerned.

“It is very important for us to see a local win at the last festival we were so proud to be a local grower to beat the man from Gatton, the whole town sort of lamented when an out of town person won the Giant Melon.

Chinchilla News front page Nylah Horswood, Peyton Davies and Hudson Holland are counting down the days to Melon Fest.

Ms Davies said she would also be hosting a melon growing course for kids on November 7 from 3.30pm to 4.30pm at the Chinchilla Library.

“Because of the keenness for both adults and children in Chinchilla to grow giant melons for the festival the library approached me and asked if I could do a workshop for the children,” she said.

“I will give them a couple of seeds and teach them how to strike them, how to get the giant melon up and running how to look after it, run through some recipes with them and the history of the giant melon.”