Felicia Friesema

He likes round produce. Sure, there's the occasional baskets of Spanish padrone peppers, bunches of torpedo onions -- and does anyone else remember the crosnes? But push that aside and you have Alex Weiser's rainbow assortment of heirloom potatoes and, come summer, a stack of intensely aromatic melons. Weiser cuts...

For many, the piles of corn and stone fruits at the farmers markets are all that's needed to assert that summer has officially arrived. A glance at the calendar tells us that last week was the summer solstice, and planetary orbits are a better marker if you're looking for something......

Purslane is considered an invasive weed in the state of California, and getting it under control has been a challenge. The thick stems and succulent teardrop leaves are easy to identify, and the plant itself pulls up from the ground without much of a fight. What makes it invasive is......

Reading Emily Green's perfect feature on blackberries back in March has had us itching for the early-summer arrival of local blackberry varieties months before the berries started forming on their thorny vines. Kincaid Farm finally made its 2012 Hollywood farmers market debut this week, contributing to the annual summer swelling......

Let's just get right to the point and tease up an apricot flame war: The Robada apricot is better than the Blenheim. Yes, yes, the Blenheim has an unquestionable pedigree. It's been around for more than 100 years in California and was responsible for making the Santa Clara Valley an......

The path to the olallieberry, a 1935 loganberry and youngberry cross that grows exceptionally well here in California, is a very short one. It's around only three to four weeks tops from the start of picking to the last luscious berry. It has a direct lineage link with and acquires......

Apricots join artichokes, garlic, avocados and citrus on the long list of fruits and flowers that make California agriculture the envy of the nation, if not the world. It's a finicky fruit that needs a dry spring (check), free of the late-spring frosts that can devastate crops (also check, at......

Morel mushrooms are back -- after a tense few days among antsy pickers up north. Conventional wisdom says that on the West Coast, morels show up in spring after two full days of 80-degree-plus weather and that they favor recently disturbed earth, either from fire, logging or new landscaping. This......

The big news at farmers markets this week had little to do with actual fruits and vegetables as much as our access to them. Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced $4 million in awards to help states expand availability of wireless technology in farmers markets so they can participate in......

The big news on the tables this week was the arrival of not one but two favored stone fruits -- Spring Snow white peaches from Boujikian Farms at the Hollywood market on Sunday and the first cherries from Murray Family Farms at the Wednesday Santa Monica market. The cherries will......