There is nothing quite like a juicy, ripe strawberry picked fresh from the patch! June in New Hampshire means strawberries are ready for picking. Ripe local strawberries are much awaited and it’s a short, sweet season, typically beginning in mid to late June and lasting just a few weeks, until the beginning or middle of July — about a month’s time.

So much of farming is beyond vegetable or fruit crops. Native shrubs, plants and flowers are a staple in New England, dotting white picket fences and dooryards. Nurseries thrive in the region given the extended growing period offered by greenhouses, providing a local alternative to having plants shipped in from other parts of the country. Nurseries abound in the region too, greenhouses dotting farmland here and there. You just have to know where to go.

There’s no better-known iconic breakfast duo than pancakes topped with a generous pour of maple syrup. It’s even better when that maple syrup is produced in the Northeast, where maple production exceeds that of the rest of the nation. From tapping trees to gathering sap in traditional metal buckets to boiling it down in quaint, rustic sugarhouses, maple syrup producers in the region have the science down to a T. For those looking for some of the good stuff, they don’t have to look far in Southwestern New Hampshire to find it.