Manteca’s kickoff to summer — the 28th annual Crossroads Watermelon Street Fair — takes place Saturday-Sunday on June 3-4.

Vendors have filled all 266 spaces for the Manteca Chamber of Commerce event. There is a waiting list of 25 other vendors.

Chamber Executive Director Joann Beattie said after two consecutive sell-out years, plans are underway to add additional vendors along Main Street during the 2025 edition.

New this year to the kids watermelon games is an adult watermelon eating contest. That is in addition to entrainment both days and a car show on Sunday, June 4.

The two-day event that runs both days from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. celebrates watermelons.

For more information, go to manteca.org

San Joaquin County — specifically the fields around Manteca, Tracy, and Ripon — is the largest watermelon growing region in California.

 There are 2,170 acres planted in watermelon within the county.

In 2021 the Central Valley yielded almost 490 million pounds of watermelon. Of those, 196.4 million pounds were from San Joaquin County. That’s almost two-fifths of the crop.

San Joaquin County, on its own, topped the Imperial Valley at 23.9 million pounds and the Southern California region at 13.8 million pounds.

 Manteca-Ripon is home to the two most well-known purveyors of watermelons — Perry & Sons as well as Van Groningen & Sons that broker under the moniker Yosemite Fresh.

In 2021, California was the third largest state for watermelon production at 490 million pounds, behind it in the No. 4 spot was Texas at 366 million pounds followed by North Carolina at 255 million pounds.

The top producing state was Florida at 1.01 billion pounds. Coming in at No. 2 was Georgia at 693 million pounds.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com