The Seasons of Astera
Hello There! Been a while since I’ve tip-tapped something on my keyboard for the Always, Never blog. Life has been interesting lately, and I spent the last month organizing my personal life. It’s funny how working intensively on a project single-mindedly for years isn’t the best environment for fostering personal development! I mean, I know some super humans out there that are great at balancing fitness, home organization, family time and work, but I’m not one of them. My usual method is to HYPER FOCUS on one thing intently until I’m totally burned out and then let everything fall apart, rest a minute, then pick up the pieces and go back to being a lunatic.
Fortunately, the team at Astera has grown into a formidable force of talented and dedicated folks, and I was able to try to “pull my shit together” ( as Lebowski would say "in the parlance of our times"). I spent the past few weeks getting the bathroom remodeled, getting my yard to not look terrible, starting a healthy eating and fitness routine, and cleaned the heck out of my garage.
In our lives, we go through these hibernal and vernal periods. We slow down, speed up, fall down and get up all the time. For some folks like myself (typical creative weirdo types) the graph of this has some high peaks and low valleys.
Such is the rhythm of the seasons, illustrated beautifully here in the Pacific Northwest. The change of seasons slows us down and speeds us up accordingly. I feel a big-cozy-sweater and reading-books-by-the-fire type slow down approaching, seeing the drizzle and gray skies outside. Leaving the business of the sun soaked summer behind doesn’t sound that bad when looking forward to thermoses of hot toddy.
At Astera, we have identified EIGHT seasons we’d like to represent with eight menu changes. We have always operated on month to month basis, but going forward, our ticket releases and menu changes will be on a six to eight week schedule, represented by these distinct titles, seen below:
EARLY FALL (you are HERE)
September 25, 2025
Some tomatoes and peppers linger. We’ll start seeing root crops popping up with parsnips, kohlrabi, carrots and beets alongside heirloom brassicas like cheddar cauliflower and romanesco. Some winter squashes start to pop up like early hubbards. Grapes continue, as do with wild mushrooms like chanterelles, maybe somel obster mushrooms, porcini, and chicken of the woods. Early emergence of winter mushrooms like hedgehogs and yellow foot chanterelles.
AUTUMN
November 1, 2025
Autumn brings an end to any hold ons from summer, with an emphasis on brassicas, leeks, and storage crops like apples and squashes. The menu shifts towards heartier fare with more hot courses like soups and hot pies.
EARLY WINTER
December 18th, 2025
Expect lingering field crops like cabbages, kale and other brassicas alongside storage crop like root vegetables and winter squashes. Fruit is limited to storage orchard fruits like apples. It’s a time we look to California to bring in novel citrus fruits, though some meyer lemons are to be found from Junction City and other warmer microclimates.
We rely heavily on our pantry at this time, pulling out ferments and dried sundries to augment the menu.
Expect vegetable forward desserts made with celeriac and parsnip and the like.
Winter mushrooms like hedgehogs, yellow foot chanterelles, and black trumpets will continue to feature alongside cultivated varieties.
WINTER
January 29, 2026
The winter continues, with a continued heavy reliance on storage crop. The fields are looking more barren.
EARLY SPRING
March 19th, 202
A strange period for crops as the storage veggies dwindle, the fields are muddy and barren, yet the wild things haven’t yet popped. We start to see some wild veggies emerging from the woods and hillsides at the end of this season, and the menu might have some tweaks as those items present themselves.
If we’re lucky, we’ll start to see the first signs of rhubarb. Raabs emerge as brassicas have all bolted in the field.
Menu starts to cool off more, with more ambient temperature courses available.
SPRING
April 30, 2026
The green fields will start producing around this time, and we’ll see asparagus, rhubarb, plenty of wild forage greens, early crop strawberries, some wild berries, and spring mushrooms like morels, verpas, and spring porcini. Expect young, tender greens, spruce tips, and other signs of emerging newness. Fennel, spring onions, and green garlic feature.
EARLY SUMMER
June 11, 2026
Early Summer in Oregon resembles Spring greatly, with plenty of green beans, brassicas, lettuces, spring mushrooms, and herbs. We’ll start to see more fruiting vegetables like cucumbers with some limited amount of early tomatoes.
All sorts of berries appear, with late season strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries.
Will start seeing summer squashes emerging with many varieties. Some early summer fruits like apricots, nectarines, and peaches appear
The menu features more ambient and chilled dishes to relieve the heat outside.
SUMMER HIGH SEASON
July 30, 2026
High Season arrives with a bang, bringing summer fruits like cucumbers, tomatoes, grapes, melons, and peppers. More summer squashes and eggplants abound. Berries are plentiful, as are herbs, lettuces, flowers, and summer fruits like peaches, plums and nectarines.
Of course, these menu predictions are based off reading years and years worth of emails from farms, who send us weekly lists of their offerings for pickup or delivery. With every year, there seems to be more and more unpredictability with climate change. Sorry to be a bummer, but it’s a reality. I don’t think we’ll be growing avocados in Oregon anytime soon, but it’s getting warmer for longer for sure.
Bookings for the Autumn menu will be available on October 1st. After that, we’ll set release dates on a schedule that will be more in line with the seasons.
Have a lovely Early Fall day everyone!
