August is the month for canning, when the bounty of the farm is captured for the winter. Greg Brown croons “taste a little of the summer, Grandma put it all in a jar.” This weekend we canned dillys, jalapenos, pickles, salsa and whole tomatoes. Our interns and new WOOFER Lili quite literally invited themselves to the party (to learn the ropes), and it became an old fashioned canning bee, complete with music and lots of laughter.

If canning is not your thing, or you simply cannot stand a hot kitchen on top of all the other hotness, try refrigerator pickles! Easily scalable to handle however many cukes you have on hand, prep done in minutes, no special equipment other than a glass container, and your kitchen stays cool as a . . . . cucumber (ha!). So simple you may start quick pickling other produce just to have a crunchy flavor zing on hand. Pickled red onion comes in handy for everything from sandwiches to pizza, quick pickled turnips with a beet added for color are awesome on schwarma – possibilities abound!