Small and Lush

In the year since its founding, the Claremont farmers market has attracted many small-scale organic and local farmers, and now ranks as one of the best small markets in the Southland.

On Sunday, Brett Jensen of Hillside Farms in La Habra Heights offered superb, full-flavored organic heirloom tomatoes, including orange-and-red-striped Tigerlike; Giant Pink Belgian; ruffled Costuluto Genovese from the Italian Riviera; and pink, mango-shaped New Zealand Paste tomatoes. He also had Ronde de Nice zucchini, a round, variegated type with more complex flavor than the usual hybrids, and chiltepins, firecracker-fierce hot peppers.

Cabral’s Farm of Ontario displayed tall cornstalks to advertise its white corn, along with tomatillos, red onions and black-eyed peas. From Riverside, RS Farms brought fine red and green peppers, cucumbers and okra; Lily Yang of Bih Shan Farm had organic ong choy, shiitake mushrooms and splendidly fresh snow pea shoots; Joe Lossing sold organic zuccheta squash, a slender Italian heirloom with artichoke flavor, and aromatic Charentais melons.

Three generations of Weisers--Sidney; his daughter Esther; and two of her daughters, Sarah and Michelle--presented their own scrumptious organic melons from Lucerne Valley: football-shaped ananas, with sugary white flesh; striped green Ogen, with an intriguing aroma of guava; and small, pale Butterscotch, with distinctive orange and green flesh.

John and Lois Lindsay, a retired couple from Rainbow, sold Anna and Golden Dorsett apples (early-season, low-chill varieties), Valencia oranges, Marsh grapefruit and Swiss chard at their sweet little stall. For stone fruit, Twin Girls Farm of Reedley had organic July Red yellow-fleshed nectarines, Arctic Queen white nectarines, White Lady peaches and Catalina plums--standard varieties but of high quality.

Casa Colina of Pomona, which provides “horticultural therapy and career development” to people with disabilities, sold unusual organic herb plants: variegated marjoram, English and Corsican mint, licorice marigold and pineapple sage, which lived up to its name with a pungent pineapple perfume.

Claremont farmers market, Yale and Bonita avenues, Sundays from 8 a.m. to noon.