Fall Menus

Cool autumn air and fewer hours of sunlight signal summer’s final push to sweeten the last of summer’s bounty: Pumpkins, winter squash, the last tomatoes for canning, apples and figs ripen as persimmons and pomegranates are almost ready to pick. Apples are pressed for juice and cider; new wines are fermenting. Fall has arrived. The harvest of the first cool season’s crops begins. Among them are multi-colored chard, new crisp carrots and beets. After the first rain, wild mushrooms appear in abundance in the Santa Cruz foothills and mountains and the coastal side of Monterey County.

As harvest ends, we tuck in our fields, vineyards and orchards for the winter, seeding cover crops to enrich and enliven our soils for early spring planting and pruning when the growth cycle begins again. Living in our generous and beautiful Central Coast is a study in being with nature, of watching the earth change, the trees and plants grow, the flowers blossom, fruits of our labor feeding us bountifully throughout the year.