Felicia Friesema

Each year the arrival of the jujube -- the small, date-like Chinese tree fruit -- surprises us. People have been growing it in the U.S. for almost a century now. It was once fruita obscura, treasured in Asian markets but not much elsewhere, as recently as five years ago. Now......

Tara Kolla of Silver Lake Farms is widely known for the rows of Mason jars she fills with vibrant L.A.-grown and pesticide-free blooms. Her own urban farm experiences -- she was shut down three years ago thanks to ham-fisted bureaucrats and shoddy municipal code -- turned her from a backyard......

The O'Henry is to peaches what the Gravenstein is to apples, at least when comparing the elusive qualities of flavor and nostalgia. Although where the Gravensteins signal the start of apple season, O'Henrys are the heralds of the end of peach season. And after the weeks of oppressively hot weather......

Alex Weiser's market tables are groaning under the weight of his summer harvests -- Gaia and Ogen melons, freshly dug torpedo onions, a small rainbow of eggplant including Caliope, Hansel and Gretl to name a few. He recently added just-cured Spanish garlics and French shallots, and then there are his......

If the Red Delicious apple was hard to grow and had at most a three week harvest window, we safely predict the farmers market cognoscenti would be making at-dawn market runs to the one or two vendors who offered it -- to buy it by the crate. That rush-and-grab mantle......

Dragon fruit is so aptly named. The baseball-sized fruit is covered in long, lime-green, fleshy scales that ripple out from a dark red core. Open one up and you stain your hands magenta from the nearly fluorescent flesh dotted with tiny black seeds. Asia has long grown dragon fruit --......

In the early heirloom discovery days of farmers market tomatoes, growers often kept different varieties in separate piles and sold them for different prices (actually some still do). They were banking heavily on what they hoped would be a designer label approach. But where good summer tomatoes are concerned, that......

Summer is waning, but when we say this, most people point us to the markets and say, whoa, slow down. Peaches are at their peak, corn is sweet and the melons perfume a whole block. The autumnal equinox is still months away -- Sept. 22 -- and we haven't even......

Summer is a time for minimizing kitchen time, at least at the stove. For the most part, local harvests cooperate. Stone fruits and herbs are easily converted into aguas frescas, cold yogurt-y soups and dips with a blender. Parsley root does not fit that summer profile -- and yet, here......

Local farmers with the field space in the desert areas sometimes are able to give us a limited eggplant crop in the early spring. But eggplant, a close relative of tomatoes, potatoes and peppers, generally is intolerant of cold weather. A few chilly nights (they don't even have to reach......