A Red Wagon Load : Kathy Duran handpicks fruit from her Ojai orchard, taking enough for a day’s sales at the farmers’ market.

Sunkist Growers, the world’s largest citrus marketing cooperative, used to assign pickers to harvest the fruit of Kathy Duran’s small Ojai grove. The grapefruit and oranges she so proudly raised would end up as generic juice or frozen concentrate in some unknown grocery store. While the money she earned was satisfying, she was less happy with the fruit’s destiny.

“They would come and do the picking and then just be gone,” she said recently. “It just didn’t seem like it was my fruit.”

So she stopped making the easy sell to Sunkist and decided on a more personal marketing approach. Now, rising before 6 a.m. a few times a week, Duran descends into her orchard and handpicks the fruit that will be offered later that day at a farmers’ market.

“I go in pulling a red wagon and pick only enough to be sold that day,” she said. “I like to be able to tell my customers the fruit was picked the morning it’s being sold.”

Duran’s specialty right now is grapefruit, which she offers at the Wednesday and Saturday Ventura markets. The summer months are prime time for Ventura County grapefruit growers.

The local commercial yield--worth about $8.2 million in 1990--ultimately hits the market when the large producing areas, such as Florida and Texas, are out of season.

Two varieties of this large citrus are available in these parts: the Marsh white and the ruby or pink variety. Duran has trees that bear the white version and a few that produce a “combination,” with slightly pink-fleshed segments.

“I hope to have grapefruit through September,” she said. She warns customers not to fear random blemishes marking her grapefruit. “I don’t use sprays so they aren’t always going to have perfect skins.”

One dollar will get you three grapefruit. “As summer passes, the grapefruit will get even sweeter than they already are,” she said.

Ojai resident Bob Eschen is happy to be back this year selling his ruby grapefruit at Ventura’s Wednesday and Saturday markets. The notorious freeze of 1990 wiped him out, leaving nothing to sell last year. “My crop is still only 40% normal,” he lamented. “But that’s better than nothing--last year I didn’t do a dime.”

Eschen said grapefruit must be picked in a ripe stage because the sugar content will not rise once the fruit is removed from the tree. “The skins will be a little soft when they’re dead ripe,” he said. His shortened ruby grapefruit harvest will be available through July, he estimated.

Besides the area’s farmers’ market scene, locally harvested grapefruit can also be had at roadside stands around the county. You can find fresh harvests in abundance along the meandering California 126 through the citrus-rich Santa Clara Valley. The numerous stands between Santa Paula and Piru will offer quality grapefruit through the summer and early fall. In the Simi Valley-Moorpark area, Tierra Rejada Ranch stand (3370 Moorpark Road, Moorpark) is offering the Marsh white variety.

Looking for a particular something to fill that empty section in your back yard? Wil Brokaw might suggest a “Chandler” pummelo tree--a not-so-common variety that bears huge, mild-tasting grapefruit. He recently began to offer exotic fruit trees and citrus trees to customers at the Saturday Ventura farmers’ market. The trees are from his family’s Brokaw Nursery in Saticoy.

“If you have the confidence to grow a shrub tree you can grow any of these,” he said. Brokaw’s plentiful tree selection includes blood orange, white cherimoya, loquat, Pinkerton and Gwen avocado, Vernon sapote and the feijoa, known as the pineapple guava.

“All of these trees will do well in a coastal or intermediate climate,” he said. That includes pretty much anywhere in Ventura County, including the more arid, warmer climate in Simi Valley. “The heat won’t hurt them, but real cold air will.”

Brokaw said if you have the confidence to grow other trees you should do well with the exotic fruit trees too.

“If you’re going to go to the trouble of caring for your plants, you might as well get something back for your troubles.” After planting, he said, “you should have fairly heavy fruit production within two to three years.”

Brokaw also offers a small treelike shrub called the Lorver Pitanga, which bears a cherrylike fruit with a tangerine flavor. “I’m not sure you can get a Pitanga anywhere else. I think I’m the only one offering these.”

Brokaw’s citrus trees run about $15, while the exotics are around $18. “That includes tax,” he said.

SERVING SUGGESTION / GRAPEFRUIT SUPREME

Grapefruit is too versatile to be simply halved, juiced or segmented as a breakfast-time staple. Not only can it be sliced into salads for a tangy embellishment, but the Vitamin C-rich citrus can be used to create a light, refreshing dessert.

3 grapefruit

water

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup curacao or other orange liqueur

1/3 cup toasted sliced almonds

Take one grapefruit and using a vegetable peeler, remove only the outer, colored portion of the skin. Cut peel into thin slivers. Place slivers in a bowl and pour one cup boiling water over slivers. Let stand for five minutes. Drain.

Finish peeling the grapefruit, removing the white skin that remained. Remove peel from the other grapefruit. Segment all three.

Combine sugar and enough water to make 2/3 cup in saucepan. Bring to boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add slivered peel and boil one minute. Remove from heat and add curacao.

Place segments in a shallow dish and pour syrup over the grapefruit. Chill four hours or overnight. Before serving, sprinkle with almonds. Makes four servings.