September and October typically have some of the nicest weather here along the California Central Coast and also typically have a few especially hot days. This year there seem to be more of the later including some record breaking temperatures. We have a home weather station set up out in the garden and 112 degrees was recorded one day — something seriously unusual. There is a strong marine influence here since we are only a few miles from the Pacific ocean and our home, like most in this area, was not built with air conditioning. To make matters worse, some of our heat spells coincided with smoke from the wildfires, so opening the windows even when it cooled off was not a great idea.
So, probably because of the extra heat, the apples were ready before I expected them and the pumpkin vines were more dead than alive. I ended up with a double crop of pie pumpkins as about the time the first batch were ripe, the vines produced another crop. When I took down my pumpkins (yes, I had them growing up rather than out), I left them on the steps hoping they would stay nice and be available as holiday decorations. By the end of last week, it was clear that they were not going to last. So this past weekend it was time to process most of them for the freezer an make one pumpkin pie for us now.
The previous weekend it was the apples as they had filled up a shelf in the fridge. Our trees are only a few years only and still small, but several of them are extremely good producers. Because we don’t get the cold required for many varieties of apples, I am pleased that we have found quite a few which are doing well although sometimes the seem confused about the season. I ended up with seven pies. One for the oven and the rest triple wrapped in plastic wrap and put in the freezer. A local farm stand has wonderful homemade pies as one of their special features. In addition, they also, make extras that are frozen for take and bake. After seeing that, I did a bit of a google search and now do my own version. They are not as pretty — but doesn’t that add to the home made appeal?
