Roadside Honey Do’s

Along with such icons as the palm tree the surfboard the rickety little fruit vegetable stand that sits by itself in the midst of a citrus grove by a two-lane road says “California.”

The handmade signs, sometimes misspelled, often advertising flats of strawberries or avocados at three for $1, let you know you are nearing the turn-in to a produce stand.

Should we stop--”Oh, look, honey, cantaloupes for 50 cents . . . What do you think . . . should we pull in?”

The answer is, “Yes, honey, you should.” Money is often saved, and unusually tasty and sometimes exotic fruits and vegetables can be discovered.

At any given time of the year throughout Ventura County, up to a dozen fruit, vegetable and flower stands are open seven days a week just out of town or on the outskirts.

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Sometimes all the produce is local--perhaps from the Oxnard Plain or the orchards of Ojai Valley--and sometimes only a couple of foodstuffs are, such as broccoli and navel oranges this time of year.

“But it’s all from California,” said Osvaldo Aguila, who owns and runs Aguila Produce, which sits surrounded by fruit trees and half a dozen slightly askew signs on the corner of Olivas Parkway and Telephone Road on the outskirts of Ventura.

“I’m here all day every day of the year except Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year’s,” said Aguila.

Even on a chilly January afternoon, regular customers constantly pulled into the hardpan driveway of his stand.

Across the Olivas Parkway sits Fernando’s open-air flower and produce stand, surrounded on three sides by newly planted fields.

On display at Fernando’s are mangoes whose color Cezanne couldn’t improve, navel oranges at four pounds for $1, hard-to-find small white onions at 59 cents a pound, local broccoli for 49 cents a pound and several kinds of apples for under $1 a pound.

And lemons are going for 10 cents apiece.

Among the produce stand’s fresh flowers, local statice, plus giant mums, stalks of deep red ginger, gerberas, roses and carnations are displayed at prices that compete with the county’s certified farmers’ markets.

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Tubs and baskets of jicama, string beans, delicious miniature bananas, lettuces, grapes and tomatillos sit piled high, side by side, in all the colors of a painter’s palette.

“This is not even our busiest time,” said saleswoman Anna Soles. “That begins in March.”

Back at Aguila’s across the road, his lemons, slightly larger, are going five for $1--still a bargain.

An enormous bin of giant yellow pomelos--Chinese grapefruit--sports a “3 for $1” sign.

The pomelos look as sour as the lemons, but the next morning at home, they are as sweet as Texas ruby reds--and half the price.

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His deep red “pesticide-free” tomatoes, at $1.59 a pound, prove to be as tasty as they look--quite an accomplishment in 1999, when a tomato almost never tastes like a tomato anymore.

Occasionally, not all of these stands’ offerings are as perfectly unblemished as the fare at a supermarket.

But the Market Lady has no quarrel with a misshapen tomato if it’s cheap, tasty and going to be chopped up anyway.

Give these roadside entrepreneurs a go--you won’t regret it.

TIP OF THE WEEK:

The edible flowers at the Camarillo certified farmers’ market on Saturday morning, 2220 Ventura Blvd., look good enough to eat. And they are.