Summer 2020 ended abruptly this year. On Labor Day in early September, a fierce wind storm came in quickly during the late afternoon and sparked numerous wild fires all around our state. For close to two weeks, firefighters worked day and night to contain the damage, homeowners in affected areas were evacuated and hoped for the best, and the sky all across Oregon looked surreal as smoke obliterated the sun and caused our air quality to be the worst in the entire world.
It also effectively ended our summer growing season. Tygh and I have been slowly dismantling our beloved garden over the past month, making note of our successes and failures this season.
We’ve also been busy cooking and enjoying the things we planted.
Tygh made some delicious butternut squash ravioli with a browned butter sauce. We used our own butternut squash, roasted it with garlic and pureed it as the filling. He made his own fresh ravioli using Semolina Flour. And garnished with toasted pine nuts. So yummy.
Baked acorn squash has made it to our table as well. We ended up with dozens and dozens of butternut squash and spaghetti squash but only about 6 of these beauties. We will pull them out of the shed this fall and winter for meals.
We harvested our few apples as they ripened. I think we had 6 HoneyCrisp this year and only a few Northern Spy. But they were so good and fresh. Tasted delicious. Hope to get enough next year to make a pie or at least a galette.
We also found time to make a small batch of pepper jelly. This year’s batch doesn’t quite have the heat of the chilis as much as some we’ve made in year’s past. But the color is good. It set well. And is delicious with cream cheese and crackers. We are pleased.
We planted a few cool season crops in September. The turnips have been our biggest success so far. We’ve roasted one for fun already and are hoping to have a nice crop to add to our Thanksgiving table.
We also planted more spinach, lettuce, parsley, basil and brussel sprouts. The brussel plants are big and beautiful but so far no flowers to speak of. I’m still hopeful to have some for our Thanksgiving dinner next month. We also planted about 50 garlic cloves this past week. An Italian softneck variety. This is our first time planting garlic. I hope it does well. I use a lot of garlic each week. I’d love to harvest enough next spring to keep on hand for use all spring and summer.
We found time a few weeks ago to head to the coast for a few days. Jillian and the kids came with us. Tygh and I went last year in October and had really good weather. Our luck held this year as well. We spent 4 days hanging out on the beach, playing in a park near our rental house and lots of time in the hot tub with the little ones. It was lovely.
