July in Utah: What is Seasonal Food?
Just like the markets do, we have more seasonal food info to share with you for this July newsletter, plus info on upcoming food events for the month that you won't want to miss.
In the next part of our Utah-specific seasonal food guide, we are talking about what’s seasonal in our state right now, and what you can expect to start finding at your local markets or in your CSA. We also hope that this just serves as a helpful primer on what foods grow when—we want to help reconnect everyone with how our food systems work, after all. If you are a frequenter of local farmers’ markets, you’ll probably have noticed that over the last two weekends, summer favorites like zucchini and tomatoes have started to make their appearances. Read below to find out what to look forward to as the season (and the soil) gets hotter and the days get longer.
Also, in researching all of these seasonal veggies, we have found that all roads lead to USU Extension, where there is so, so, so much information on Utah agriculture, with resources for farmers and home gardeners alike.
Veggies you might already expect to start seeing this time of year include:
Celery
Corn
Carrots
Tomatoes
Zucchini and Summer Squash
Peaches (starting in mid- to late-July)
Cucumbers
Green Beans
Peppers (sweet, spicy, long and twisty, or short and plump)
But there are some others you might overlook, or which maybe aren’t as usual suspects in your kitchen.
Cabbage
This veggie stores in the fridge like no other, and even after it’s cut, covering it and storing it in your produce bin can extend its shelf life for actual weeks. Just cut off the ends that get a little droopy when you go to chop off new bits for garnishes, stir-fries, or crunchy salads.
Chard
While the leaves are delicious cooked down, the beautiful stems can be quick pickled for crunchy snacking or garnishes!
Eggplant
This misunderstood vegetable is delectable in a summer ratatouille filled with other summer nightshades (which can be fancy like in the Disney movie, but is at its heart an adaptable peasant stew great for dinners where one pot is all you want to use).
Garlic
Supermarket garlic can’t compete with the fresh stuff and the many varieties (super spicy! caramalizers!) local producers have for sale.
Grapes
Yep, grapes grow in Utah, especially the kinds good for juice, jams, and jellies.
Kale
Kale is one of the best greens because it is so diverse. Keep it raw and use it for salads, sandwiches, burgers, cook it down into soups, stir-fries, and hashes, or steam it to add to anything that needs some green.
Nectarines
While Utah peaches are most popular, their stone fruit cousin debuts in July, too, and is just as sweet and versatile.
New Potatoes
Small potatoes just dug out of the ground are the lighter, sweeter version of their autumnal cousins and are perfect for summer salads.
Onions, Shallots—just alliums galore
Are onions the perfect vegetable? They’re used for so much, and their flavor goes so far, whether you’re using sweet yellow ones for a soup base, chopping up green onions for sprinkling, frying up some shallots (mini onion rings!), or enjoying the season’s first sweet purple onions raw.
Turnips
One of the first root veggies to show up at markets, turnips can be cooked to creamy goodness or even pickled for a bright and peppery snap of flavor.
Bonus: Garlic Scapes
If you’ve been going to the markets lately maybe you’ve been perplexed by the green twisting tentacles curling out of boxes, bins, and buckets at various stands. These are garlic scapes, the stalks that grow from the bulbs of hardneck garlic plants. They have a distinctly garlicky flavor, but milder than raw garlic bulbs, and are great for making pesto or using in light, lemony pastas.
If you missed our last newsletter, you can check here for a farmers’ market near you.
A camp stove hash with new potatoes, root veggie greens, spring onion, oyster mushrooms from Intermountain Gourmet (they’re stocked at Harmons, too!), all from local producers. Oh, and a lot of beans and veggie sausage.
Events coming up in July:
July 6
Food Justice Community Picnic at Liberty Park
The Food Justice Coalition works to end food apartheid and feed unhoused members of our community, and at this picnic you can talk with them about their work and also sample the nutritious foods they distribute to folks on SLC’s streets. Bring a blanket, your own reusable cutlery to cut back on waste and money for their suggested cover of $20—half of which goes towards the picnic food and supplies, and the rest towards meals for unhoused neighbors. The picnic is from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the Northeast side of Liberty Park. Find details here.
July 7 and 14
Create Farm Fresh at Day-Riverside Branch
If you’re curious about how to incorporate more farmers’ market goods into your grocery rotation, this free four-part series from the Day-Riverside branch of the Salt Lake Public Library will guide you on helpful steps to take. Go on Thursday, July 7 or Thursday, July 14 from 7 p.m. - 8 -.m., and register here.
Salt Lake Community Fridges get a Community Garden
If you don’t follow the amazingly cool work of this group, do it now! SLC Community Fridges stewards a bunch of freely accessible neighborhood-based “freedges” where anyone can donate or take perishable foods like fresh veggies, meats, eggs, breads and more. The Sugar House freedge just got a new food resource, too, by way of their community garden. Food from the garden is for anyone to take, and anyone can contribute to the garden by weeding, using spare wood in the area to build one’s own garden box, taking seedlings, and suggesting plants to add to the garden. If you wanna garden with buds, head over for their garden nights on Thursdays at 7 p.m. (the next one being on July 7). Find more info and keep up on their Instagram.
July 16
Tomato Pruning and Cloning
Yes that’s right, you can clone your plants—get that bang for your buck. Wasatch Community Gardens can teach you how at their upcoming weekend workshop, alongside basic tomato plant maintenance like tomato plant pruning. Find info and sign up here.
July 20
Get Ready to Sow Fall Crops with Wasatch Community Gardens
As much as we look forward to eating and growing fresh veggies in the summer months, those warm months don’t have the monopoly on fertile ground. Or at least they don’t have to. Go to this webinar from WCG to learn the tricks and tips to extend your fresh veggie harvest into October and November, and even into colder months with methods like low-tunnels, hoop houses, and cold frames. Sign up and get more info here.
July 30
Plant Based Utah Potluck
Interested in eating more vegetables? You don’t have to be vegan to socialize at the nonprofit Plant Based Utah’s potluck—you just have to be hungry and excited about the prospect of healthy food. Visit here for upcoming details.
July Forays with Mushroom Society of Utah
Whether you’re interested in the science or the food (👋), the Mushroom Society of Utah is a great place to go to learn more about the fungi that grows in Utah. If you learn enough, you can learn which ones are good for eating—and that’s free food friends. At the end of the month they’re hosting one of their potlucks, where you can get to know the folks in the Society and sample some delicious dishes with mushrooms at the center. And if you’re really curious about learning to forage for fungi, MSU hosts forays all over the Wasatch Front once a month in the summer. It’s not too late to get in on it! Find details on the potluck, forays, and joining MSU here.
We hope you enjoyed this newsletter and that you found it informational! Did we miss anything? Do you want to help us out? Do you have ideas about questions we should answer, issues we should cover, or other aspects of the food world that deserve to be talked about? Shoot us an email at utahfoodcoalition@gmail.com, or follow us on Instagram at @utahfoodcoalition.