An incredible, edible garden in the heart of wine country inspires recipes brimming with fresh-picked flavor.

Tomatoes so sweet, you can eat them out of hand. Juicy, ripe berries. Peppers in a rainbow of colors, just begging to be grilled. And peaches—is there anything as perfect as a tree-ripened peach in season?

It’s summer, and there’s no better time to enjoy the garden’s bounty.

Just ask Geoff Palla, Garden Manager at Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts, a culinary and wine education center in Napa, California. Right now, Copia’s gardens are overflowing with hundreds of varieties of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, melons, beans, berries, onions, potatoes, peaches, and plums—to name a few. “The flavors just knock me out,” Geoff says. “You haven’t lived until you’ve had an heirloom melon, still warm from the sun.” Ask Geoff about the benefits of eating seasonally and he’ll tell you it’s a little bit about freshness, a little bit about nostalgia—“a romantic notion of land and farming.” But mostly, he says, it’s about flavor. “Things just taste better.”

To take advantage of those tastes, Geoff, along with the chefs and culinary instructors at Copia, shared some of their favorite seasonally inspired recipes. For the full effect, Geoff suggests enjoying them outdoors on a sunny day, preferably surrounded by a garden.