Survival and success

Maybe what attracts customers to the Weiser Family Farms stand at the Wednesday Santa Monica farmers market is the rainbow of potatoes in different shapes and sizes: Russian Banana, Rose Finn, Red Thumb and Purple Peruvian, some of them so fresh their skins rub off between your fingers. Maybe it's the Bloomsdale spinach with its fleshy leaves so sweet you can eat them raw without a taste of tannin. It could be the fuzzy green almonds. Certainly the dozens of buckets of sweet-smelling lilacs don't hurt.

By Russ Parsons

May 4, 2005