This week I got to immerse myself in some of my favorite activities of the late harvest season. It started last Sunday when my husband and I visited the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market in a suburban Portland neighborhood (where we were visiting family). I’ve written several times about how much we enjoy visiting another Portland area farmers market, the Beaverton Farmers Market, whenever we’re in the area, but we weren’t free on this trip to stop in on Saturday, the only day they operate on the weekends. The Hillsdale market, while smaller, still offers a good range of vendors selling fruit; veggies; baked goods; local meats and seafood; flowers; and assorted processed foods such as preserves, honey, sauces and the like. An added bonus: It operates on Sundays, one of the few in the metro area that does so.

As we usually do, we made a quick circumnavigation of the booths to see what looked tempting (short answer: a LOT!) before we started to fill our shopping bag. We were pleasantly surprised to see that one of the produce vendors had some late, sweet bi-color corn, so we grabbed several ears for that night’s dinner. Most of the vegetables on offer were of the late-season variety: carrots,   potatoes and yams, broccoli, cauliflower, beets and winter greens. Summer fruits had given way to fall pears, apples, figs and persimmons, with some plums also making an appearance. Just as in summer, though, the scene was full of color, with the flower stand where we bought two lovely bouquets certainly contributing in that regard.

Both color and design drew us to the Foglia booth, where unique and eye-catching raviolis and sauces graced the table. “Foglia” means “leaf” in Italian and is the term chefs use for a sheet or “leaf” of pasta dough. We had quite a chat with one of the partners in the company that produces pasta, raviolis, sauces  and meatballs for restaurants, farmers market sales and to-go orders and meal kits. He explained that they use only natural vegetable dyes to create the colorful designs of their pastas and focus on using superfoods and high-quality, local ingredients. He even described how they work the dough in order to achieve the eye-popping designs. We didn’t purchase any that day, having no means to transport them all the way back home, but we plan on trying them next time we’re up north.

Later that afternoon I joined my daughters and their families at Beilke Family Farm in the Willamette Valley near Salem as they picked out pumpkins for Halloween and filled up 5-gallon buckets with a variety of apples. Earlier in the year the farm also offers a variety of vegetables, and their u-pick flower patch was still going strong with dahlias and zinnias. We first consulted the large sign at the edge of the orchard which identified the many varieties of apples available, where each was located and how best the variety could be used (fresh eating, baking or sauce). Some varieties were past their peak ripeness, with lots of windfalls under the trees, and others were still ripening. It didn’t take long for us to fill our buckets (I went predominately for Jonagolds, planning to make and freeze several pies),  and the kids thoroughly enjoyed finding “the best” apples; the branches were low and full enough to make it easy for them to reach the fruit.

After returning home here in Southern Oregon, I realized I needed to get my own pumpkins for Halloween. A nearby family-owned farm operates an honor-system farm stand nearly year-round, always stocked with all manner of fruits and veggies. After seeing on Facebook they were running a special one-day sale on the gourds, I zipped over on a sunny-hazy afternoon to make my picks. Bigham Farms sits at the base of two interesting geographical features here in the Rogue Valley, the Upper and Lower Table Rocks, and it offers a lovely view of nearly 10,000-foot-high Mt. McLoughlin, on this day wearing an early-season cap of snow.   I took a moment to savor the peacefulness of the place and the sense of the land winding down towards winter. Then it was on to choosing a few select pumpkins from a wide range of sizes, shapes and colors before weighing my booty and slipping payment into the lockbox in the stand.

I love this season for many reasons, but perhaps chief among them is the opportunity it affords to enjoy the bounty of the harvest and the beauty of its riches.

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor