DEL MAR -- Just in time for the Fourth of July, city folk perfected their watermelon seed-spitting techniques Thursday at the San Diego County Fair.

Worm races and seed-spitting and corn-husking contests are held every day in the Infield Farm area at the fair.

"Farming is a lot of work, but farmers knew how to have fun, too," said farm coordinator Jennifer Galey of Cardiff on Thursday.

Indeed, all of the fair's farm exhibits, which include a working beehive and extensive vegetable and flower gardens, are designed to entertain as well as educate, she said.

For the seed-spitting contest, participants are handed a free slice of lip-smacking watermelon, then asked to line up for their turn to spit a seed. Fair staff members then circle and label each seed with the participant's name in sidewalk chalk.

A whole watermelon was consumed and seeds were flying Thursday.

In the children's competition, small-but-mighty San Diego resident Angelique Ortega, 8, launched a black watermelon seed an amazing 24 feet.

"Mom doesn't let me spit at home," Ortega said. "But I picked the biggest seed I had and did my best."

Spitting, while generally discouraged by moms everywhere, is allowed in the backyard of the Fellbaum home in Valencia, said Therese Fellbaum, whose entire family competed on Thursday.

"We don't really practice, but I do let the kids take cherries outside in the yard and spit out the pits," she said.

Fellbaum's husband, Dan, took home first place in the adult contest, spitting his seed across nearly 33 feet of concrete.

And to what does he attribute his success? A good, deep starter breath? Seed selection? Perhaps a good whip of the head? Or the hard-to-master rolled tongue?

"Sure, practice helps, but it's all technique," Dan Fellbaum said, with a sly grin. "I'm afraid I can't reveal the real secret."