Quebec monks rediscover long lost melon
The Oka melon's rebirth in the abbey's garden was made possible by an organic seed farmer, Jean-Francois Leveque, who is on a mission to rekindle lost parts of Quebec's agricultural heritage.
The monks of the Val Notre-Dame abbey founded an agriculture school in 1893, when they lived in Oka, just outside Montreal. Somewhere along the years the monks lost the Oka melon.
But when Jean-Francois Leveque discovered the Oka melon while looking through the archives of an American seed bank, Leveque knew he had to bring the fruit back to life.
Now his work has come to fruition and last summer, for the first time in decades, the monks of Val Notre-Dame harvested the Oka melon.
Read more at fcc-fac.ca
