COSTA MESA

Surplus vegetables from the farmers market that growers would normally throw away are now being tossed into salads for the county’s hungry.

Two weeks ago, seven of the approximately 40 farmers selling fruits and vegetables at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa began giving boxes of leftover produce to the Second Harvest Food Bank. On Thursday, 20 farmers donated about 550 pounds of apples, lettuce, avocados, strawberries, spinach, squash, broccoli and cauliflower.

The Orange-based food bank is the county’s largest. It distributes food, usually in cans, to 340 soup kitchens and shelters across the county. Food collected by Second Harvest serves about 185,000 people each month, according to the food bank’s records.

“It’s really nice for them to get some fresh produce, since most of what they get is canned,” said Gayle Cory, a manager of the Orange County Farm Bureau who helped organize the food drive.