Lambert’s Cove Inn executive chef Max Eagan showed up for pickup day at Whippoorwill Farm’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program on Friday with other shareholders, basket and scissors at the ready. But Mr. Eagan wasn’t picking the last of the strawberry harvest and snapping sugar snap peas off the wiry bushes on the Oak Bluffs farm for himself — he was picking for the restaurant.

Snap, shell, snow: June means pea season on the Vineyard.

It’s a rite of summer, seeing the “We Have Our Peas” sign placed for the first time in front of the Bayes Norton Farm stand on Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road. (The Vineyarder who originally painted the sign wrote “Pease,” thinking it was spelled the same as the old Island family.)

Their peas are so sweet it’s as though owners Jamie and Dianne Norton added sugar to the soil.

Squeals had been echoing through the Katama Barn at the Farm Institute for 14 hours while three mamma pigs labored last week. Mariah, Carrie and Rhonda, the large sows who together produced 23 piglets, began farrowing Thursday afternoon and by Friday morning were not pleased with all the commotion.

“It’s okay, mamma, it’s okay,” said farm manager Julie Olson, cradling the tiniest newborn piglet from one of three litters. “Everybody’s talking.”

With the rolling fields of the Keith Farm next door and Lucy Vincent Beach in the distance, Chris Fischer tried to hand off a piglet over the fence at Beetlebung Farm

As the last week of August and first week of September are upon us, there is no getting around the crisp smell of soil in the air, the slight crunch under your feet as leaves begin to drop

Fresh corn, tomatoes, potatoes, squash, greens and other veggies dot the farmers’ markets across the Island. Nothing compares to farm fresh eggs, sometimes you’re even able to buy Island-raised beef, and most recently locally raised and slaughtered poultry. But what about melt-in-your mouth mozzarella made with Vineyard milk, or forgetting the spaghetti and sinking your teeth into a large chunk of Parmesan, maybe even skipping the salad and going straight for the feta?