Seasonal Produce
83 guides
What's ripening when — produce calendars, peak-season cooking, and the regional variations that change what counts as in-season from one state to the next.
Summer Squash
Summer squash includes yellow squash, crookneck, straightneck, pattypan, and related tender-skinned squashes. It cooks quickly, spoils faster than winter squash, and is best when picked young.
Watermelon
Watermelon is peak-summer fruit with a short window for the best local flavor. A good melon feels heavy, sounds full, and has a creamy field spot where it rested on the ground.
Apples
Apples are one of the most versatile produce staples — available from late summer through spring storage, with variety differences that actually matter for how you cook with them.
Basil
Basil is the signature summer herb — bright, aromatic, and versatile. Growing it at home is the easiest way to have a good herb on hand, but local farm basil at a farm stand beats supermarket plastic-pack herbs by a long way.
Bell Peppers
Bell peppers are the same fruit at different stages of ripeness — green is unripe, red is fully ripe, and yellow and orange fall in between. That distinction explains nearly everything about how they taste and how to use them.
Blueberries
Blueberries are one of the more successful summer fruits — they store well, freeze perfectly, and the local varieties have a depth of flavor supermarket berries rarely match.
Carrots
Carrots are one of the most reliable local-farm vegetables year-round — harvested in fall and stored through winter. A fresh-pulled carrot from a farm stand tastes nothing like a supermarket bag carrot.
Corn
Sweet corn is a time-sensitive crop — the sugars in the kernels begin converting to starch the moment the ear is picked. Local corn eaten the day of harvest is a different vegetable than supermarket corn shipped from days away.
Cucumbers
A good cucumber from a local farm in midsummer — thin-skinned, cool, and snappy — is a different experience from the waxed, seedy cylinders shipped year-round at supermarkets. Knowing what to look for makes the difference.
Fresh Herbs
Fresh herbs are the fastest way to transform a dish. A handful of basil, a few sprigs of thyme, or a tablespoon of chopped parsley changes a plate in a way that dried herbs simply cannot replicate — and local farms grow varieties that never appear in supermarket bundles.
Green Beans
A fresh green bean from a summer farm stand — snapping cleanly, bright and grassy — is a completely different experience from the limp, dull beans at the supermarket. Green beans are one of the most improved by local sourcing.
Mixed Salad Greens
Mixed salad greens from a farm stand — loose-leaf lettuces, arugula, spinach, and more, harvested that morning — bear no resemblance to the washed and bagged mixes that have been sitting in a bag for a week. This is the produce where local sourcing makes the most immediate difference.