Summer Produce Stocks the Shelves in Needham
July 7, 2025
• From fresh herbs to juicy corn, Volante Farms and the Needham Community Farm are harvesting an assortment of produce this summer season.
Within the last week, Needham Community Farm hauled upwards of 150 pounds of zucchini and summer squash from their fields. That’s just the start to — weather-depending — a bountiful summer season.
Assistant Farm Manager Sasha Fraser said the team is harvesting scallions, beets, greens, fennel and faster-maturing carrots. Soon, fruits will be on the menu, such as tomatoes, which signify summer for her.
“Garlic — that’s the big one,” Fraser said. “This is the season that garlic is ready to harvest.”
At Volante Farms, the late summer into the fall proves the busiest time of year, as families return from vacation and into their routines, co-owner Teri Volante Boardman said. Across their three growing fields and greenhouse in Needham, Volante is growing collard greens, kale, lettuce, radishes, Swiss chard, zucchini, escarole, an assortment of herbs — mint, dill, parsley — and more.
Much of that produce is certified organic and labeled as such throughout their farmstand. Volante also incorporates its various homegrown produce in ready-made meals, some of which are made using preserved fruits and vegetables from previous seasons.
“If we have too many peas, we’ll send some to the kitchen, or if some of the peas aren’t looking as good as the new ones that just came in, we’ll send the old peas to the kitchen to be shelled and frozen, and then sometimes in the middle of the winter, those will make their way into a dish,” Volante Boardman said. “So we’ll still have homegrown produce in a dish in the dead of winter, which is really cool.”
A couple years back, the farm experienced what Volante Boardman calls “pepper palooza,” when a favorable season turned out a large-scale pepper harvest. They also occasionally supply local restaurants with excess produce, like they did with eggplant last year.
Too much of anything on a farm is never a problem, and at the NCF, half of their produce is donated locally through the Needham Community Council. The other half goes into their community-supported agriculture program, which supplies seasonal goods to 60 households who pay in advance.
The weather is never predictable, and farmers “try to hedge our bets” and adapt for next year, she said.
The heat usually impacts the community farm’s leafy greens, particularly arugula, lettuce and spinach, which bolt in the heat — the center of the plant elongates, and the greens can become bitter, Fraser explained. To prevent bolting, the farm this year is growing summer lettuce between two high tunnel shaded structures, and their harvest is now sitting in a cooler before it’s sent off.
Their sugar snap peas, however, had a less successful season.
“My hypothesis is that the soil temperature stayed too cold for too long, but peas had a really short season because they germinated late. They didn’t do so well, and now they’re starting to die off because of the heat, which is normal for them,” she said. “What’s abnormal was the length of the season, and some community garden members are predicting that it will be harder and harder to grow peas in this climate.”
Volante Farms typically plants spinach early in the summer and late again toward the fall to avoid the high temperatures, but the last few weeks have posed a challenge.
“Of course, nothing’s 100% predictable. That’s kind of the joy and the pain of this profession, I guess,” Volante Boardman said. “We’re very much at the mercy of the weather.”
During the spring, consistent weekend rainstorms prevented locals from stopping at Volantes, resulting in delayed plantings for more tender crops such as basil, tomatoes and peppers, Volante Boardman said. But all those items are coming later this season. For the community farm, more frequent rainfall helped supply their garden beds with plenty of water for weeks.
Corn is a summer-into-fall fan favorite — “everybody freaks out about the corn” — but Volante Boardman said she has a penchant for peas, which she keeps in a basket by her desk to snack on. She encourages shoppers to try the less-popular items, like broccolini.
“I feel like people just go for broccoli because it’s broccoli, but right now we have homegrown broccolini, and it is gorgeous and delicious,” she said.
Throughout the year, Volante Farms updates its “now picking” list on its website.
For Fraser, nothing beats a cucumber in the summer.
“I do think that fresh, locally grown cucumbers are really underrated,” she said. “They’re just extremely sweet and full of flavor.”
The farmers out in the fields and everyone involved in the planting, harvesting and stocking chain deserves their flowers, Volante Boardman said.
“[It’s] a whole bunch of awesome people who are working here trying to grow the best and healthiest, freshest, most delicious produce,” Volante Boardman said.
