SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Persimmon Season and Stand Open

When it comes to growing persimmons in Orange County, there are two local producers. Rancher Bill Bathgate is the biggest, which isn’t saying much except for the produce stand his family opened Friday.

For more than 15 years, the Bathgates have sold persimmons, oranges and avocados from a ramshackle wooden building off Camino Capistrano, and its first day of business every year is the official beginning of persimmon season.

And as long as the Bathgates have persimmons to sell, the stand will stay open.

Judging from the success of other years, that will probably be about two months--and they don’t even advertise. Instead, the family sends out a newsletter to customers who sign up at the stand.

“The power of the grapevine can be very great,” Bathgate said. “Of course, it doesn’t hurt that we’re right by the freeway and people can see us.”

Several years ago, a reporter drove from Los Angeles to do a story for the Korean News. That story still brings customers to San Juan Capistrano, Bathgate said.

“I still see people arriving, holding the story in their hands,” he said.

The Bathgates never intended to have the stand off Camino Capistrano, but the high demand for their produce finally nudged them into business more than 50 years after the family bought 75 acres of ranchland in the northernmost part of the city.

“We used to sell all our produce in L.A.’s wholesale markets,” Bathgate said. “But there were so many people who kept wandering onto the ranch, we finally had to open up a stand.”

The family sells Fuyu (the Japanese word for winter) persimmons, a sweet-tasting orange fruit that resembles an apple, at $20 for a 25-pound box. Bathgate estimates that he has about 1,000 persimmon trees on his ranch.

Actually, the Bathgates don’t own the ranch anymore.

It belongs to the Rev. Robert H. Schuller’s family.

Schuller, who bought the land last year, has plans to eventually put a cemetery and a center for senior citizens on the property.

But until then, the Bathgates continue to farm avocados, oranges and persimmons--the three crops that have been staples since his family bought the property in 1923.

The Schullers pay Bill Bathgate to remain as a caretaker.

The Bathgates started out selling English walnuts.

Gradually, the ranch shifted to oranges, at least partially because of the husk fly, a pest that can destroy the walnut harvest.

“At the time we pulled the walnuts out, people said there was more money in oranges,” Bathgate said. “Of course, it hasn’t always worked out that way.”