We're watching with a bit of sadness (and, to be honest, a little bit of relief) as our garden winds down. Tomatoes are still turning red, green beans are dangling from their posts, but other than that, we didn't plant too many late summer/early autumn veggies.

However, just when we thought the curtain was coming down on our garden, we learned something new ... there is a second act!  

It recently dawned on us, as these revelations often do for newbies, that all of those early spring veggies we enjoy can be planted in the fall! Here they are for an encore performance ... arugula, spinach, radishes, lettuces - all of the things we love to munch on at the start of the season, and some of the things we completely forgot to plant.  

So, in what seems like deja vu, we were back in the rows again with our packets of seeds. But this time, we got a little creative. Previously, we didn't put too much thought into what kind of radishes, spinach, etc. we planted; we just wanted something - anything - to grow sturdy enough to be served for dinner.  

But we recently learned about Seed Savers Exchange, a "non-profit dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seed." (www.seedsavers.org) So we gave it a look. Neither one of us imagined there were so many types of garlic available to us. Eight varieties! Seven kinds of radishes! Each one with it's own zippy description that just begged us to buy it.   

So we did. And we sowed.  

And then the rains came.  

It is anyone's guess - certainly we don't have the foggiest - whether these little seeds will actually grow after all of this rain that flooded the garden, but we're being optimistic. Fingers crossed, by our next blog, we'll happily report that little sprouts have popped their heads out of the earth.

Veggies seem so simple. There is no fancy packaging. No confusing label to read through. No additives, preservatives, or other ingredients that cannot be pronounced. What you see is what you get.
 
But before you let down your guard, take caution. The simple veggie needs to be understood, just like any other living thing. There are dos and don'ts in how you handle your veggies. Play nice, and you will be rewarded with yummy goodness. Treat them with disrespect, and you will be sorely disappointed.
 
Case in point ... two years ago, I decided that I would squirrel away bags of locally grown green beans in our freezer to have for the winter. I spent a good deal of money and time gathering and zip-locking these guys to enjoy when locally grown greens are hard to find. What could be complicated about saving beans? Buy them. Put them in ziplock baggies. Squeeze air out. Chuck into freezer. Simple, right?
 
But four months later, having prepared a batch for dinner, there was a noticeable off taste to the beans. Really off. Maybe a bad bag. I tried again with a different bag. Just as gross.
 
So I did some reading. It turns out that you need to blanch the beans first before freezing because (according to the nifty handout our mom gave us) "if vegetables are not blanched, or not blanched long enough, the enzymes continue to be active during frozen storage, causing off-colors, off-flavors and toughening."
 
Bingo!
 
Had I done my homework, I would have known how to store my beans properly. Instead, I assumed that I could handle the beans like any other ordinary thing I throw in my freezer.
 
Next year, I got it right with kale. Blanch first. This year, my sister and I have spent hours blanching and zippering kale. Not my idea of a fun evening, but the rewards come later.
 
I thought I learned my lesson, but once again, I was fooled by the innocent look of a veggie. This season, it was broccoli. My sister and I grew several rows of really tasty broccoli, and I intended to freeze most of my share. I whipped out the nifty handout again and read through the directions. Blanch then store. However, there was an extra step this time. "... immerse in brine for 30 minutes to remove insects."
 
Forget it, I thought. It's 9 at night and I don't have time to brine. I plopped the florets into their super warm tubby on my stove.
 
As I gazed with pride into my vat of broccoli, I noticed tiny floaties in the water that looked nothing like broccoli. Bugs. Tiny inch worms that were tucked into the broccoli, now dead in my vat of boiling water. 
 
I called my sister to deliver the bad news ... she had steamed a batch for dinner. 
 

There is such a satisfying feeling when you sit down to dinner and find food that you've grown on the plate. Our kale and broccoli are in, as are the gobs of zesty radishes that we've been munching on daily. 

While we are loving the instant gratification that comes with a home garden - pluck it, eat it - we're also trying to think ahead to the darker days of winter. We both have read books about the idea of eating seasonally and locally, and to be honest, it's really hard. Especially if you don't have a roomy freezer. There's not too much greenery to be found in February. And, although our Lancaster County apples are delicious, after a month or two one craves other fruits. Just try passing a display of red grapes and bananas with your toddler in the grocery store without grabbing a bunch. We have, and all hell breaks lose.  

So getting back to that roomy freezer ... it's about squirreling away what we can while veggies and fruits are in season. Strawberry picking is fun, but these days I sort of look at it as a job. (Yes, I'm something of a killjoy when it comes to filling buckets with berries.) There is strawberry jam to be made, whole berries to freeze for winter smoothies and pancake sauce, and purees to blend for a surprise margarita in January. By the second trip and 15th pound of berries we plucked, my girls threw down their baskets in protest. Instead, they found it much more enjoyable to march up and down the rows of strawberries, waving the tiny row markers in the air like they were leading a parade.  

On kale, we eat a ton of it. It's so full of good-for-you types of vitamins that you'll feel your skin glowing after a dishful. Perhaps it got a bad reputation from cheap restaurants, which only uses kale with an orange slice to adorn steak entrees. Okay, it IS bitter, but prepared properly, it really is enjoyable (see a tasty recipe below). And, kale actually freezes really well. You simply blanch it in boiling water for a minute, dunk in a ice bath and then dry before zipping it up in a plastic bag and freezing. It may not be as quick as grabbing a bundle at your local grocery store, but it's not difficult. And let's not forget that aforementioned element of satisfaction.  

So abundance can be great, if waste can be avoided. Here's our hard lesson learned ... what are two families going to do with two dozen heads of lettuce, all of which are coming up at the same time? We can give to friends (which we did) and perhaps to food charities (something we didn't do, but need to investigate), but still we have more lettuce than we could possibly eat. That's a shame, because food went to waste. Had we thought about it, we could have used the space for other veggies that grow during late spring. One to remember for next year.  

If you are interested in learning more about eating locally and seasonally, Barbara Kingsolver's book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" is a great read. Not only is it full of recipes and valuable information about eating close to home, it offers much humor about her family's attempt (and often struggle) to eat locally-grown foods year-round.

Chickpeas with Kale (This recipe comes from Smittenkitchen.com, and is actually called Chickpeas with Spinach. Kale as a substitute doesn't change the taste all that much.)

Two 15-ounce cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
6 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound (450 grams) kale, washed and cut into thin strips
A hefty 1-inch slice from a country loaf or about 2 slices from sandwich loaf bread (2.5 ounces or 75 grams), crusts removed and cut inset small cubes
1/2 cup (4 ounces) tomato sauce
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Pinch of red pepper flakes
1 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Lemon juice, to taste

Place a large saucepan over medium heat and add half the olive oil. When it is hot, add the kale with about a teaspoon of sugar (in batches, if necessary) and stir well. Remove when the leaves are tender, drain in a colander and set aside.

Heat 2 more tablespoons olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Fry the bread for about 5 minutes or until golden brown all over, then the remaining tablespoon of oil and the garlic, cumin and pepper. Cook for 1 minute more or until the garlic is nutty brown.

Transfer to a food processor, blender or mortar and pestle along with the vinegar, and mash to a paste. Return the mixture to the pan and add the drained chickpeas and tomato sauce. Stir until the chickpeas have absorbed the flavors and are hot. Season with salt and pepper.

If the consistency is a little thick, add some water. Add the kale and cook until it is hot. Check for seasoning and serve with paprika on top, or on fried bread toasts (as the Spanish do).

So now that we've conquered our weeds (for now), we are on to bigger and "pestier" things. There seem to be many things that can ruin a garden, as we are learning, but we've come across two that are potential crop destroyers.

The first is the potato beetle. This guy, who looks much like the Japanese beetle, comes in and lays its eggs on the leaves of the potato plant. If the eggs hatch, we could be in deep trouble. So, after Mom's directions, we've been removing the beetles and the eggs, which are reddish orange in color. If we keep on top of them, then our potatoes should go unscathed.

Our biggest pest is Tubby the Groundhog. He made his first appearance this week. He was first spotted circling the garden with his nose going a mile a minute. We sent the kids after him with cymbals in hand, and he retreated to the woods. However, he was back about 30 minutes later and found his way through the fence of the garden. Lickily, we chased him away without any vegetables being eaten. But the look in his eye reminded us of one we've seen a thousand times - our kids when we take them to the local ice cream shop. JACKPOT!

So we've encountered our biggest and hungriest pest. He could probably destroy our garden overnight, especially now htat he has found a way in. For now, we've deterred him by spreading some deer and pest repellant, which we have to say is probably one of the worst smells ever. Truly horrible stuff. but we have a feeling that this solution is only temporary.

What can we do next?

We are open to any advice, and are not opposed to drastic measures. Despite being animal lovers, we wouldn't be that sad if Tubby took a permanent vacation, if you catch our drift. If he stays, we have a reoccuring problem. And can you imagine if he meets Mrs. Groundhog? We could have a whole furry family on our hands! They would treat our garden like the McDonald's $1 menu.

On a brighter side, we've been enjoying our delicious butter crunch lettuce and radishes. By this time next week, we should also be enjoying the sugar pea's and broccoli. Yum! Yum!

There's something so comforting, so appealing and - pardon the pun - so attractively earthy about planting a vegetable garden. The idea of plucking brilliant-colored, pesticide-free veggies from the dirt and taking them straight to the kitchen to become food for our families seems ... well, just seems right.

It's this sort of mindset that led us - two sisters/moms living in Lancaster - to plant a garden together, and then blog the results.

Our biggest dilemna to date has been deciding what is a weed. Honestly, when those teeny weeny sprouts poke their heads out of the soil to greet the sun, is there anything that distinguishes them from that home-wrecker of a plant - the weed? Kale looks like a weed. Radishes look like morning glories, which, in our book, is a weed. (Any plant that chokes the life out of another deserves weed-status.) Beans ... weeds.

Imagine our horror when, last year, one of us (and that person shall remain nameless) mistakenly pulled an entire row of beets from the earth, tossing them aside like they were used tissues, our mom tsk-tsking our error as she rolled up her sleeves to show us right from wrong.

Learn from our mistakes? Nah.

That same person (who, again, shall remain nameless) recklessly yanked a precious few of our carrots from the ground this year. She couldn't even blame the fat groundhog for the sudden vacant space in our plot; the shame was too evident on her face.

There have been some hard lessons learned.

So what should two (rather green) gardners do when the garden is getting over-run by honest-to-goodness weeds, which have thrived on our uncertainty? We could easily wait it out until they got bigger and revealed their true selves, but if you don't stay on top of these guys, they can take over a garden.

First call of action, ask Mom. What can we say ... Mom knows. However, Mom lives over an hour from our garden. If Plan A is not feasible, we move to Plan B - look for the start of neat little rows, a sure sign that the sprouts in question were planted by us (unless, of course, the weeds have gotten smart and are organizing).

We're happy to report the garden is now in ship-shape, less a few carrots. If you look closely, you can see happy broccoli, full heads of lettuce and sturdy potatoes, our happy tenants soaking up the May sun.