NYT Strands for August 11, 2026

The hints, as published

Everything on this board is something you would carry home in a paper sack after a trip to a stand piled high with the season's best.

1. Bugs Bunny's favoriteA tapering orange root, famous for a supposed boost to night vision, an old wartime myth that stuck around long after the war ended.
2. On the cobGolden kernels on a cob, essential at any summer cookout, and also the word for a hard patch of skin that forms on your foot.
3. Mostly water, all summerA sprawling vine fruit, its green-skinned pink-fleshed cousin a picnic staple, alongside a smaller orange-fleshed relative usually cut into wedges.
4. Sweet or scorchingA hollow-bodied vegetable ranging from mild and blocky to small and capable of ruining your afternoon, depending on which one lands on your plate.
5. Fruit or vegetableBotanically a fruit, treated everywhere else like a vegetable, and the center of a very old kitchen argument about which one it really is.
6. The overachieverA summer squash so prolific that gardeners quietly leave bags of it on neighbors' porches, unasked, every August.