End-of-summer HARVEST

Don’t let summer escape without sampling the final harvest of the season

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Labor Day doesn’t mean summer is gone. We still have a couple of official weeks, and chances are good you can grab an afternoon by the pool into October; this is the South. But no matter how hard we wish the days to stay warm and long, there’s no denying that college football kicked off over the weekend and culinarily speaking, it’s time for tailgating, not tomato tarts. Before you know it, we’ll be simmering pots of chili and cooking Sunday pot roasts.

I say hold out a little longer. Don’t go quietly into that long winter. Go fortified with watermelon, a memory of great homemade ice cream, your fill of tomatoes and your lips stained from snow cones. Have your freezer full of pesto and paletas, and you’ll survive the first frost and beyond. We’ll be back here before you know it.

Jerry’s Sno Cones (1657 Wells Station; 901-767-2659) is open year-round, but get your snow cone now, when you’ll most enjoy it. Same with La Michoacana (several locations, including 4091 Summer; 901-590-1901), but you know you want your paleta when the mango-chili hits the spot on a late summer day. Don’t forget to find the MEMPopS food truck and pick from a lineup of creative frozen pops such as roasted peach, red plum with yogurt and tarragon, cantaloupebasil and many others; call 901596-6293 or check Facebook or Twitter @MEMPopS to locate.

But you want to get in your own kitchen, because you can’t make homemade ice cream without doing it at home. And all that basil needs to be preserved now. So here are some recipes to make sure you enjoy the end of harvest, whether from your garden or from a local farmers market.

Angela Oswald of Peach World at Agricenter says that while the peach season is almost over, they’re available right now.

“There aren’t many and they’ll only be coming in for maybe another week or so,” she said.

Still available are peas, including the highly sought lady peas.

“We have those and purple hulls, whippoorwills, and corn isn’t local but we have real good corn coming from Ohio now,” she said. “And all around the market there are odds and ends that are still coming in.”

In abundance right now? Muscadines. One bite and you’ll go back to your childhood.

And don’t worry, when it’s time for chili, we’ll quit fighting against it.

Before summer fades into fall, indulge in the season’s final harvest with refreshing gazpacho with goat cream cheese (top left) or a watermelon tomato salad (top right). Peach season is almost over, but they’re still available to whip up a pan of peach...