In Season

While it’s obvious that fruits and vegetables have their seasons, there are other things in the grocery store that also do. Like pork.

The weather doesn’t tell pig farmers when to plant and when to harvest, but other factors do. Right now pork prices are at an all-year low. This is because a USDA forecast predicted six months ago that more sows would be held back for breeding, creating a shortage of pork. So many pig farmers rushed in to fill the void that the opposite occurred and there was a surplus. As a result, May commodity prices for various pork products fell; compared to a year ago, they are down as much as 44%.

And that’s why you can now find pork tenderloin in your grocery store in the $2.50-to-$3-a-pound price range.

POULTRY

* Seasonal adjustments of yet another kind account for current lower prices for chicken legs. In the past, much of the surplus in leg quarters (created by the tremendous popularity of breast meat among consumers and the fast-food industry) was sold to the Soviet Union. In the current political climate, that market has all but dried up. And those drumsticks have to be sold somewhere. That’s fortunate for chicken lovers because June is the opening of cookout season, demand is the highest of the year, and whole-bird prices are at their annual peak.

FRUIT

* The blueberry harvest is now under way and is expected to be a big one, despite late freezes that killed as much as half the crop in New Jersey. Because of the spring drought--and the accompanying warm weather--in the Northwest, picking in that area is as much as five weeks ahead of schedule. Good crops are also expected in the Carolinas, Texas and Arkansas.

* Raspberries and strawberries are not as well priced as they have been. The spring harvest of California raspberries peaked last week and will not pick up again until picking starts in mid-July. The interruption for strawberries is more temporary: Growers in the Salinas-Watsonville area are all but done with the early Pajarro variety, but the Selva variety is still a week or two away from harvest.

* The cantaloupe harvest that just wrapped up in the Imperial Valley was a good one--maybe too good for the growers. While a lot of melons were picked, not many were bought. The season now moves to Bakersfield and, in a couple of weeks, to the Huron-Coalinga area. Both are expecting high quality and normal supply.

* The first major grape variety, the Perlette, is at the peak of its season, with the Thompson seedless harvest expected to begin within a couple of weeks.

VEGETABLES

* Cabbages and cucumbers, most of which are trucked in from the big growing areas in South Carolina and Georgia, are plentiful and cheap.

* Broccoli, which has been expensive lately, should be coming down a bit in price as the Salinas area begins to harvest, but don’t expect any major price reductions until July, when the season really takes off.

In the Grower’s Markets

* At the downtown Long Beach market, on the Promenade between Third Street and Broadway, Fresno grower Chris Yang has been selling an amazing array of chiles: green and red jalapeno and serrano, yellow and “sweets.” He also has fresh lemon grass, okra, bitter melon, bean, taro and chayote leaves. Gomez Farms from Rancho Cucamonga has zucchini flowers and Black Mission figs. And there have been lots of cherries; last week the Circle C Ranch from Lake Hughes was selling Rainier, brick, sour and Lambert cherries.

* At the Compton/Hub City market at the corner of Alameda Street and Compton Boulevard, Julia Martinez from El Toro has been selling chiles: yellow, serrano, jalapeno and Anaheims. She also had nopales and baby zucchini with blossoms. Carson’s Louis Figueroa has been selling stacks of fresh greens--turnip (with or without baby turnips), mustard, collard and kale. And last week, Leon Ennis was selling butter beans and chayote squash grown in his back yard.