18 tested recipes for the vegetables, fruit and herbs that fill a home garden between June and November. Filter by crop, or scroll through the whole collection.
Recipes are listed newest first inside each crop. Last updated November 12, 2024.
Beans & Legumes
Shell beans and late-summer sweet corn simmer together in a buttery, thyme-scented broth. Succotash is the oldest farmhouse supper in North America, and it costs almost nothing when the garden is producing.
Beans & Legumes
Yellow wax beans blanched, then tossed in a warm sweet-sour dill sauce thickened with a roux. A classic Bavarian side for roast pork, sausages and new potatoes.
Cabbage & Brassicas
Pointed cabbage wedges seared hard in a cast-iron pan until the leaves blacken and sweeten, then finished with anchovy butter and lemon. A winter vegetable with real drama.
Eggplant
Whole eggplants grilled until the skin blisters and the interior collapses, then opened up and dressed with garlic, chile, black vinegar and sesame. The easiest way to cook eggplant and the most flavourful.
Eggplant
Fried eggplant folded into a sweet-and-sour agrodolce of celery, onion, olives and capers. Caponata is a pantry dish that tastes best after a night in the refrigerator.
Okra & Southern
Whole okra pods left intact, blistered in a hot pan or on the grill with garlic, cumin and smoked paprika. High heat and dry pods are all it takes to banish the slime.
Peppers
Halved sweet heirloom peppers filled with herbed quinoa, tomato and feta, then baked until the edges caramelise. Vegetarian, freezer-friendly, and easy to scale for a crowd.
Preserves & Condiments
Husk cherries have a floral, pineapple-and-vanilla flavour that makes an extraordinary jam. A small-batch preserve that sets naturally from the fruit's own pectin.
Preserves & Condiments
Wild huckleberries or blueberries cooked down with lemon and a touch of cinnamon into a dark, intensely flavoured jam. A small batch that rewards careful skimming and patient simmering.
Preserves & Condiments
Blistered corn kernels, sweet peppers and onion in a bright cider vinaigrette. Spoon it over grilled meat, fold it into tacos, or serve it with chips as a smoky alternative to tomato salsa.
Root Vegetables
Whole beets roasted in a foil parcel until they collapse, then sliced over cool mint-flecked yogurt with pistachios and orange. Sweet, earthy and completely unlike boiled beets.
Soups & Stews
Sweet corn, potato and onion are simmered in their own starch and blended just enough to turn creamy. No cream needed, and the flavour of heirloom corn comes through unmasked.
Soups & Stews
Bread, almonds, garlic and sherry vinegar blended into a chilled white soup and finished with sweet grapes. Ajoblanco predates tomato gazpacho and takes fifteen minutes to make.
Squash
White heirloom pumpkins roasted until caramelised, pureed, and baked into a custard with brown butter and warm spice. Deeper and less watery than anything from a can.
Squash
Grated zucchini squeezed dry, bound with egg, flour, dill and crumbled feta, then pan-fried into lacy-edged cakes. The most useful recipe we know for a glut of summer squash.
Tomatoes
Ripe heirloom tomatoes, charred chile, onion, lime and cilantro, chopped by hand and salted to taste. Salsa cruda is the reason to grow more tomatoes than you can eat fresh.
Tomatoes
Grilled country bread rubbed with raw garlic, piled with marinated heirloom tomatoes and torn basil. Four ingredients, and the single best use of a ripe August tomato.
Tomatoes
Firm, tart green tomatoes are soaked in seasoned buttermilk, rolled in coarse cornmeal, and seared in cast iron until the crust crackles. A thrifty Southern classic for the end of tomato season.
