English: Emma G sharing her music at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farmers Market in Washington, D.C., on August 6, 2018. Today’s featured produce is watermelon. National and State Watermelon Queens are here to help people learn about watermelon and taste their samples of red, orange and yellow varieties. The watermelon association queens are represented by 2018 National Watermelon Queen Savannah Lee Christensen (orange jumpsuit), along with state-level queens Gabrielle Hastings for Mar-Del (Maryland-Delaware, yellow blouse), Savannah Hartley (black dress) for Georgia, Emily Rice Dicks (fuchsia dress) for South Carolina, and Camri Campbell (striped dress) for Florida. Seed spitting contests allowed people to try besting the 21-foot distance set by one of the queens. Watermelon eating contests demonstrated how fast some people can enjoy the watery fruit. Many of the featured fruit activities were held at the USDA Farmers Market's VegU educational tent; the ‘VegU' tent allows ‘VegUcators’ to provide tasting samples of the featured produce. The goal is to increase fruits and vegetables in meals and help the customers understand what is in season.

Today’s producers are local farms, and vendors include locally sourced ingredients. Live music was provided by “emma G” for shoppers enjoying their meals and resting at shaded table seating areas in the market and the nearby garden. The garden allowed visitors to see bees, bumble bees, and monarch butterflies busy harvesting nectar and pollen from pollinator garden plots. USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.

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