Fresh From the Earth : Produce: One of the last farms on the Palos Verdes Peninsula serves up vegetables and fruits with the deep rich flavors of our memories.

James Ishibashi stands surveying his kingdom. Behind him, the hills of the Palos Verdes Peninsula rise, a burnt gold splotched with dark green. In front of him, the Pacific Ocean sparkles, an unworldly azure. Sailboats laze about in the bay and Catalina Island seems but 100 yards distant. It is the classic million-dollar view; though in the rarefied atmosphere of Southern California real estate, it is literally several times that.

Is this the view of an industrialist? A banker? A sports legend or a soap opera star? No, the 72-year-old Ishibashi is a farmer. And that is both his blessing and his curse.

On this particular sunny day, it is very much the former. Walking the eight-acre farm site, leased from the Palos Verdes School District, you can almost smell the prosperity. Over the ever-present whiffs of dried grass and sea breezes, there is a spicy hint of basil in the air. Down the path, you smell tomato plants warming. Walk a little farther and the intense, jam-like smell of sun-baked strawberries is almost overpowering.

Two miles up Palos Verdes Drive, at Annie’s, the little vegetable and flower stand run by Ishibashi and his wife (for whom the stand is named), the pleasures are less fragrant but no less real.

The white-painted, wooden box-like structure has sat just above the Abalone Cove parking lot for almost 50 years. The back of the shack is jammed with flowers, the front with vegetables. Behind, the land falls away to sea. The view here is as spectacular as it is at the farm.

A weekend stop at Annie’s is as much a part of the “Hill” lifestyle as horseback riding, sailing and tennis. The stand is rarely empty and frequently there are lines of people waiting. Customer after customer comes over to pass a moment. Many inquire after Annie Ishibashi’s health--she is recovering from recent surgery. It is not uncommon for these weekend visitors to have been shopping at Annie’s for many years.

San Pedro native Steve Cole doesn’t like to say exactly how many; he was a kid the first time he found Annie’s. “Let’s just say that’s been at least 40 years,” he says. “The tomatoes, the carrots, the strawberries. . . . I have to tell you that I have a problem. I just can’t eat grocery-store strawberries any more. They’re just garbage. I am totally spoiled.”

“When I was a kid,” Cole remembers, “this whole area was nothing but farms. There were wheat fields up on top of the hill. It’s really sad to see it go. James and Annie are really the last of an era.”

When Ishibashi’s father helped settle the area in the early 1900s, Palos Verdes was covered with Japanese truck-farms. It is estimated that at their peak, in the 1920s, some 40 Japanese families farmed more than 2,000 acres on the peninsula. Even after World War II, during which they were interned, a significant number of Japanese farmers came back to work these hills.

But the farm land gave way to urban sprawl at a rapid rate; James Ishibashi has had to move his farm four times. He and his cousin Mas are the only remaining farmers on the peninsula--and even Mas gave up on vegetable farming a couple of years ago and now sells nothing but flowers.

“I don’t know how much longer we’ll be here,” Ishibashi says. “Less and less land is available every year. We just can’t compete with the prices the developers now pay.

“And everything else has gone up too. Water has gotten so expensive. We’ve cut down quite a bit--we’re not selling any corn this year because it takes so much water--but it’s still high. The general cost of upkeep has gone way up.”

Ishibashi’s worries, that his will be the last generation to work this land, are not solely due to the cost of the land. “My kids don’t seem to be too interested in farming,” he laments. “My son Richard works for Magnavox. My daughter Yvonne is helping out at the stand, but. . . . They just don’t want to work that hard. It’s a hard life. Lots of times I’m up at 1 in the morning. You get tired of long hours for low pay.”

For the senior Ishibashis, however, this is a life with rich rewards. “We’ve got a lot of good friends who have been coming to see us for a lot of years,” Ishibashi says. “That’s the best thing.”

Indeed, this is a stand with few one-time customers. That’s because Ishibashi’s strawberries taste the way our memories tell us strawberries used to taste but probably never did. His carrots are sweeter than carrots have any right to be. His tomatoes, at this early point in the season, are full of flavor and pleasantly acidic. And his beets are nothing short of profound--lusciously sweet with layers of subtle mineral tastes.

“Things that are grown on this land are special,” he admits. “The soil has something to do with it. And the way we water the plants and take care of them. The vegetables all taste better and the flowers have lusher colors. You know, after a kid eats an Ishibashi carrot, you can’t get him to eat anything else.”

Annie’s is next to the public parking for Abalone Cove County Beach, Palos Verdes Drive South, Rancho Palos Verdes.