What Heat Hath Wrought

Right now, says one grape grower, California feels like a nice August in Detroit. But the unseasonably warm, humid weather of the past couple of weeks has had little effect on produce. Heat and humidity can cause mildew and mold--particularly on grapes and leaf lettuces--but that does not seem to have happened yet.

On the other hand, the warm spring and summer have certainly affected the produce market. Prices for cantaloupes, nectarines, plums, peaches (except for Elegant Ladies), watermelon and lettuce are low. So low, in fact, that wholesale prices at times have fallen well below the cost of production.

“We started out two weeks ahead and now we’re a full month ahead,” says another grower, noting that an already accelerated harvest schedule has been speeded up even further.

* Particularly hard hit are plums, which are winding up their season a full month ahead of schedule. A huge harvest of early-variety plums (Black Amber and Black Beauty--definitely not on anyone’s hit parade of taste) got to market before the stores were ready for them, creating a glut that has lasted all season. Wholesale prices dropped so low that some growers left wonderful Santa Rosa plums on the trees because they couldn’t afford to pick them. Picking is now wrapping up for Friars and just starting for Casselmans, both of which are good eating.

* The heat is affecting Valencia oranges in an unusual way. When citrus fruit is exposed to high temperatures while still on the tree, the green chlorophyll begins to return to the fruit’s skin, causing something called “regreening.” The fruit looks as if it was picked before it was ready, but in reality, it is perfectly ripe. This is not making it easy to sell this year’s Valencia crop, which is said to be the second or third largest in history.

* Coachella Valley grapes are just about finished, and the harvest is moving to the San Joaquin Valley, where picking of Red Flame grapes is well under way, with Thompson Seedless waiting in the wings. The Red Flames are being harvested in large quantities and with good quality, so prices should be reasonable. After the Thompson Seedless come the exotic grapes, roughly in early to mid-August.

* Raspberries, which have been a little high-priced lately, are costing less as the “second season” starts. Traditionally, Willamette-variety raspberries are harvested in the early spring and the Heritage variety in late summer, though with the staggering of growing areas (and acceleration of harvests due to the heat), those periods are blurred. The second harvest is beginning in the Watsonville, Calif. area, and the northern growing areas of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia are picking their early berries, which means prices should be coming down.

IN THE GROWERS MARKETS

A lively growers market is held every Wednesday from 1 to 5 p.m. in the parking lot of St. Agnes Catholic Church, 1432 W. Adams Blvd. (west of Vermont Avenue), Los Angeles. Luke Nolan brings live rabbits, chickens, ducks and geese (“For pets or food,” says market manager Leilani Taliaferro).

Jess Swope from Selma has Sharlyn melons, cantaloupe, Fantasia nectarines, Elegant Lady peaches and great Satsuma plums (an antique red variety with green freckles).

Bonilla Farms, also from Selma, has another odd plum variety--the Honey Gold. Intensely sweet and deeply flavored, it is not farmed commercially because it bruises easily. McKay Smith Farms from Orange County has okra, fresh garbanzo beans and black-eyed peas in their shells. John Xiao Farms from Merced has Chinese long beans, Kentucky and Blue Lake green beans, snow peas and sugar snap peas.

La Habra’s Bob & Maggie’s Honey Co., which won eight blue ribbons at the Orange County Fair, has orange blossom honey (light and tangy), light wildflower (buttery), dark wildflower (with a dried fruit taste) and avocado (bitter, almost like molasses). And Santa Barbara’s Chance Busik has red rock crabs. This week, the market will have its annual watermelon sale--all the melons you can carry for $5.