Fresh From the Farm : Customers at Outdoor Markets Enjoy Chatting With Growers

Three crimson, plump bell peppers for $1. Wooden boxes overflowing with hot chilies and eggplant. A customer stopping to chat with the produce man about growing seasons and the weather.

A supermarket, it isn’t.

This is a scene being played out in parking lots all over Southeast Los Angeles County in the transient shopping areas known as farmers markets.

The markets are where customers forgo the sanitized uniformity of major food stores, opting instead to chat with the person who grows their corn and peas, sprouted seeds or cranberry beans.

Customers stop to gab with the carrot farmer, to seek advice on cultivating basil from the herb grower and comment on the weather with just about everyone. Office workers, retirees and tourists linger over melons, dickering over price.

Some, like Compton’s, are more than a decade old and serve as a community meeting ground. Others, like the Whittier market, are fairly new, designed to bring more people into the business area.

So many markets have opened, in fact, that the county Health Department has asked the Board of Supervisors for permission to oversee the transient marketplaces.

Each farmer selling produce is certified by the state and checked regularly by the county’s agricultural commissioner’s office, but if the Health Department has its way, the markets also will be subject to new fees and periodic inspections.

While the fees of about $175 a year won’t break the budgets of most markets, organizers dislike the idea of new controls, said Casey Hazelton, executive director of the Whittier Uptown Assn., sponsor of that city’s outdoor market.

Whether the county moves in, these occasional markets will continue to thrive, sponsors say, because they offer customers something the large grocery chains can’t deliver: the opportunity to walk in the sun and talk to the person who grew the eggplant you will eat for dinner.

Each market has a different personality and operates on different days of the week, but each has farmers who will assure you the fruit was picked yesterday, or even today.

Bellflower

Tucked into a parking lot behind the shops facing Bellflower Boulevard, this mid-sized market specializes in standards with very few frills. Great heaps of carrots, squash and late-summer fruit adorn many of the 28 stalls. Most have lower prices than grocery stores. And if some of the tomatoes are split at the top, well, they are still fresher.

A few extras at this market include a fudge-maker, a salsa producer and a woman who grows flowers, dries them and winds them into baskets. Craft sellers usually are not allowed among the producers at this seven-year-old market, manager Muriel McGregor said, but this artisan grows her own flowers.

Visitors are offered a free taste of Gran-Dad Bob’s Tex-Mex salsa--a low-sodium concoction cooked up as a hobby by a heart attack victim--and a sample of Geurt Lanphen’s pure bee pollen. Lanphen, a third-generation bee farmer from Holland, swears by bee pollen on breakfast cereal. Mondays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Laurel Street near Bellflower Boulevard.

South Gate

On the small side, South Gate’s market is limited to 22 producer-vendors who sell their wares in the parking lot of the city park. Produce tends toward the basics, with most farmers selling in-season lettuce, carrots, peppers, corn and tomatoes. A fishmonger and nursery round out the offerings.

If you want the freshest produce, arrive early, security guard Marvin Smith said. Regular customers line up as early as 8 a.m., waiting for their favorite farmer to open for business. This market is organized by South-Central Food Distributors, which uses the profits to help feed Los Angeles County’s poor.

Mondays, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at South Gate Park on Tweedy Boulevard.

Norwalk

The smallest of the local open-air centers, this one is tucked onto a corner of hot asphalt in front of a discount store. One corner of the selling area is dominated by Evergreen Nurseries from Compton. Here, colorful impatiens overflow in pots below rose bushes.

Down one row, you can find two Asian pears for $1 and an avocado dealer with a great, booming voice who insists on a smile from his customers. Wallace Melzer will throw in an extra avocado for the smile, select one that will ripen in three days and offer a bagful for your dog (he swears it is the best food for them). And the fishmonger here, George Yemetz, has good deals on fresh shark, rock cod and halibut, all caught off Santa Barbara. The market is sponsored by the local Committee on Aging.

Tuesdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Alondra and Pioneer boulevards.

Compton

A neighborhood meeting place as well as a food center, Compton’s market has a reputation for being friendly, and especially comforting for those who miss foods from the South.

Here, misplaced Southerners can find purple-hulled peas, yellow watermelon, fresh okra and chow-chow (the chopped pickles in spicy mustard sauce that Grandma used to put up in Ball jars.) The market is sponsored by a nonprofit association benefiting various neighborhood block clubs and a few churches, said manager and founder Joe Storey.

Market-goers also will find the occasional fish fry or barbecue happening nearby, and crafts are sold around the holidays.

Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the east side of Alameda Street, near Compton Boulevard, in front of Wilson Park.

Long Beach

The largest market of them all, Long Beach offers the wares of more than 40 farmers and 40 crafts people lining the downtown Promenade. A band is usually playing in the little amphitheater, and plenty of hot dog vendors are parked nearby.

In the festival atmosphere, shoppers will find fresh cut flowers, herbs of most every variety, bakery goods and bags of gourmet salad. That is on the north side of Broadway. Craft booths are clustered on the Promenade’s south side, where T-shirts, framed posters and earrings dominate the scene.

Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the Promenade between 1st and 3rd streets.

Whittier

Just 2 years old, this market has an old-fashioned feel. Held on a blocked-off street and surrounded by brick, many of the vendors specialize in foods not found in supermarket produce sections.

Sid Weiser, a retired East Los Angeles College chemistry teacher, offers tiny watermelons, Chinese garlic and an apple variety so new it has not been named yet (it’s a cross between an Empire and Northern Spy). Down the row, vendors offer Indian River peaches, cranberry beans and sweet, miniature corn still in its husk. Sponsored by the Whittier Uptown Assn. to bring more shoppers to the area, the market has been so successful that the hours may be extended.

Fridays, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Bailey Street, between Greenleaf and Comstock avenues.