The Garden of Eating Tour website offered a map, but I wanted one that not only showed where everything was but charted out a route and offered me alternative paths depending on my starting point and my interests. There was an itinerary that guided harvest bounty hunters from Albany County through Rensselaer County and on down into Columbia County, so I decided to use what was offered as a basis for creating my own tour, and it worked out beautifully.

The point at which the tour entered Columbia County was to be my starting point, so I headed up to Kinderhook. The day was perfect. The sun was bright and warm. The wind was fresh with a chilly edge that heralded the autumnal equinox. My refrigerator was already filled with bounty gathered on my regular Saturday morning trip to the Hudson Farmers’ Market and Holmquest Farms, so this trip was to be devoted to gathering things that evoked fall—apples, gourds, pumpkins, winter squash, maybe some mums or flowering kale.

My first stop was Samascott Orchards, a well-known place for picking your own fruit. I, however, headed for the farm market, where I surveyed the bounty and purchased, primarily for their visual appeal, a white pumpkin, a purple cauliflower, and some carnival squash. After paying a brief visit to the chickens happily clucking and strutting around their spacious yard, I moved on to Golden Harvest.

At Samascott, aside from me and the girl behind the counter, there was a woman searching for the perfect pumpkin and a couple who emerged from the orchard with a huge bag of apples. By contrast, Golden Harvest was bustling on a Thursday afternoon—workers were setting out baskets of apples and pears, shoppers were checking out the apples and cider, people were lunching at the picnic tables outside, and the women behind the counter were busy putting pies in boxes, bagging doughnuts, and collecting money. I bought a basket of Macintosh apples and, succumbing to the aroma of fresh baked goods that filled the air, a cider doughnut—for my lunch.

After Golden Harvest, I started improvising. I wanted ultimately to get to North Mountain Nursery and Farm to look for autumn plants to dress up the house, but I figured I’d make a few stops along the way. One of them was the Hudson-Chatham Winery where I intended to buy a bottle of wine or two, so I planned to go back south on Route 9 and then across on 203 to Route 66.

Midway along Route 203, I stopped at The Berry Farm, a great year-round market for locally produced food. Outside I admired the banks of mums and piles of gourds and squashes. Inside I surveyed the shelves lined with jars of locally produced jams and preserves in one room and containers of nuts, seeds, and dried fruit in the other. I resisted the very real temptation to buy a pint of the last of the local blueberries for $5.99 and settled on organic roasted salted pepitas for me, from Tierra Farms just up the road, and Pawprint Cookies for my dog, made in Onondaga County (not our county but close enough).

When I got to the Hudson-Chatham Winery I was disappointed to find the shop closed on a Thursday afternoon, but venturing up the driveway gave me a chance to admire one of their lovely vineyards up close.

Before heading east toward North Mountain, I doubled back on 9H to Love Apple Farm, where I bought a quart of their own yellow peaches, resisted the urge to buy a pie or another cider doughnut, and admired their cutting garden.

Heading east on Route 23, I contemplated, as I often do when driving that stretch of road, how amazing Columbia County is. Open fields, working farms, interesting topography, great natural beauty—all amazingly preserved within a few hours of the northeast’s two major urban centers. I’ve lived in different places in different parts of the country, and I always consider myself blessed to have found my way here.

I arrived at North Mountain Nursery and Farm shortly before 5 o’clock. The market was still open, but they were getting ready to close, covering up the plants outside to protect them from a predicted frost. My request for flowering cabbage and flowering kale, however, brought lovely specimens out from under the tarp for my inspection, and I settled on a white flowering cabbage and a white flowering kale.

The last of my bounty loaded in the car, it was time to head home, back to Hudson. Instead of retracing my path along Route 23, I decided to take Route 7 and then 82. Heading south on 22, I passed fields with animals grazing and small farm after small farm—the way most of the country used to be but very little of it is anymore. In Copake, I saw yard signs with the message “Stop the Housing Project in the Heart of Copake.” There were lots of them, and they made the point that land-use issues are serious concerns for Columbia County. Too many places in this country—particularly where I grew up in southwestern Michigan—have sacrificed farmland and open space to endless housing developments and the attendant big box stores and shopping malls and accepted the loss as evidence of growth and prosperity.

My afternoon’s journey made a great circuit of the county, and I ended up where I started—in Hudson, the only city in an otherwise rural place. The phenomenon of this “city in the country” never loses its appeal for me. There I met a friend for dinner at Mexican Radio, one of the Hudson restaurants participating in the Garden of Eating Tour. Owners Lori Selden, a great promoter of Columbia County Bounty, and Mark Young make a point of using local products in all the food served at their restaurant, but for the Garden of Eating Tour there was a special menu, featuring such things as veggies from Holmquest Farms, beef from Grazin’ Angus Acres, and Coach Farm goat cheese. I opted for a quesadilla with roasted tomatoes and Swiss chard; my companion chose a chimichanga filled with eggplant and mushrooms. An excellent way to end a bountiful day.