Corn-Firmed: Summer Has Arrived at the Market

It’s corn-firmed: summer has officially arrived. The first few days of July brought plenty of sunshine, a stretch of serious heat, and a market full of fresh local produce.

With temperatures staying high, our team has been spending extra time in the fields, checking soil moisture, watching crop growth, and making sure the vegetables have the water they need to keep moving through this hot weather. It looks like the heat is here to stay for a while.

Local berries are at their best

This week has been a good one for fruit. Local strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries have been filling our shelves, and nothing says July quite like those little green and blue pints of freshly picked field berries.

They are perfect with a scoop of Shaw’s vanilla ice cream, scattered over morning yogurt, baked into a simple dessert, or eaten straight from the container on a warm afternoon. The berry season never seems to last as long as we want it to, so now is the time to enjoy them while they are here.

You can browse what is freshest right now in our In Season collection, or visit the market to see what has arrived this week.

The corn is tasseling

Out in the fields, some of our corn has reached one of the most interesting stages of the growing season: tasseling. The tassel is the flower at the top of the corn plant, and it releases pollen onto the silks growing from each ear.

Every silk is connected to a future kernel, so once pollination happens, the ears begin to fill out. A lot of the work happens quietly, almost hidden from view, but this is the stage that brings us closer to that first batch of sweet corn.

If all goes well, we are only a few weeks away from harvesting our first corn of the season. We know many of you are counting down the days. We are too.

New white potatoes are here

We are also harvesting our first buckets of new white potatoes this week. Before potatoes are ready underground, the plants send up delicate flowers in shades of white, pink, purple, or lavender.

Those blooms are a small sign of what is happening beneath the soil. It is one of those farming details we never get tired of noticing, and another reminder that some of the best parts of the season take shape long before harvest begins.

Fresh local food, from our fields to your table

The weather can be challenging, especially during a heat wave, but it is rewarding to watch everything grow and know fresh local food is making its way from our fields to your family’s table.

As always, thank you for supporting local agriculture and choosing to shop with us each week. We cannot wait to share more of this season’s harvest in the weeks ahead.

Explore more fresh produce in our Fresh Produce collection, or learn more about the Lee & Maria’s Subscription Box if you would like to bring more of the season home each week.