Guest speaker Janet Persing discussed "Garden to Table" at a recent Claussville Garden Club meeting at the Seipstown Grange.

President Julie Fenstermaker brought the meeting to order and then Gladys Derstine gave a prayer and recited the poem: "There's a Tinge of Fall in the Air."

Persing and her husband Artie, members of the Lower Macungie Garden Club, began to garden recently and are now growing in a 600-square-foot space they expand every year.

They produce everything found in the produce section of a grocery store and heirloom tomatoes, which they compare to eating history.

The couple prepares their own compost, collect rain water in nine barrels, and then let nature provide the sunshine.

Last year, they collected more than 4,000 gallons of water and purchased a pump to get the water to the back garden.

Their garden attracts birds and butterflies, so they do not have bugs devouring their vegetables and they have a balanced environment.

Persing brought vegetables she picked the morning of the garden club meeting.

She chooses plants to grow that she can not find in stores.

The couple plants the finger variety, the Zebra and Japanese eggplants.

Persing dices the small eggplants and put them in her tomato sauces.

The yellow squash she adds to the Provence dish Ratatouille, a vegetable dish that combines tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, peppers, garlic, onion, red wine vinegar and oregano.

She also prepares vegetable fritters, especially with zucchini and adds dill, parsley and cheese.

Persing likes San Marzano tomatoes best for sauces and she roasts the tomatoes before using them.

She prepares two batches of roasted tomatoes, which she peels and freezes.

When she prepares the sauces, she adds carrots and onions.

Persing also makes pesto for the winter, using the giant basil Genovese, Thai or African blue basil, her favorite.

She adds garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan and Romano cheeses with butter and olive oil and blends the combination and freezes the pesto in ice cube trays.

She also has a food dryer that she uses for tomatoes, blueberries and strawberries.

The members contributed many beautiful flowers for the tournament as well as entries in the Artistic Design categories: "Happy Hearts" and "Sweet as Apple Cider," a design using apples and stoneware.