Saturday Shopping at Victory Park

Betty Hamilton, who co-founded the first Pasadena farmers market in Villa Park in 1980, will retire in June, considered by many a virtual icon of the movement. These days her Saturday market, in Victory Park, is flourishing even during the slow winter season.

Riverside-based Gless Ranch, the sole remaining vendor from 20 years ago, remains popular for its bargain citrus. Last Saturday the stand sold 25-pound bags of sweet navel oranges for $5.50, along with Eureka lemons, Marsh grapefruit and Dancy mandarins (the original “tangerines”). Shirley Spencer had Zutano, Fuerte and Hass avocados, as well as ripe yellow Mexican limes.

Winnie Knight, a retired kindergarten teacher with a sweet smile, sold Hayward kiwis from Redlands. From Thermal in the Coachella Valley, a prime winter vegetable-growing area, Nanci Kitagawa brought gorgeous multicolored Rainbow chard, sweet basil, and fresh mint, dill and parsley, along with raspberries from the Yasukochi farm of Oceanside. Recent rains have made picking difficult for berry growers, but Harry’s Berries of Oxnard had tasty low-acid Seascape strawberries.

The Fetzner stand of Perris sold an assortment of yams, potatoes and onions, including sweet green Italian onions, with bottle-shaped purple and white bulbs and green stalks, to be eaten in salads and sandwiches, and as a garnish. Sid and Esther Weiser had their usual attractive array of potatoes from Lucerne Valley: pink-red French Crescents, yellow Russian Banana fingerlings, and purple-fleshed Peruvian Blues, which they make into purple potato chips.

Pasadena Victory Park farmers market, 2800 block of North Sierra Madre Boulevard, between Paloma and Washington avenues, Saturdays 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.