Thursday, July 8, 2010

Zucchini: A Cautionary Tale


I seldom plant my zucchini, squash, melon or cucumbers from seed, preferring to buy the bedding plants and see the green leaves looking friendly from the beginning. These plants usually come in 4-packs. I knew I wanted more than four zucchini plants, so that meant a second 4-pack for a grand total of eight zucchini plants.

When I planted those eight plants in mid-May, I looked at the row of plants (Who has an entire ROW of zucchini??!) and wondered if I'd be sorry. Then we had a late frost in Northern Indiana and my dad watched the edges of my zucchini leaves turn black.

"We're going to lose 'em," he grumped. So he planted more. The sun shone, the chill faded, my black zucchini leaves grew green, broad and fuzzy.

Friends, I have ten healthy zucchini plants in my garden. Tonight a friend and I went to the garden to pick green beans. As she finished her row, I trotted over to the "zucchini row" to see what there was to pick. Dad had just picked them clean two days ago. I took a market bag with me, expecting to fill it. From the very first of the ten plants, I picked six medium- to large-sized squash. By the third plant, I was sending Sophia to the van for another bag.

I filled three bags to overflowing. Expect zucchini recipes. I'm like the Bubba Gump scene from Forrest Gump here...."zucchini bread, zucchini brownies, zucchini relish, grilled, stuffed, kabobs, fried zucchini sauteed zucchini..."

Lord help.

5 comments:

  1. Can't wait for the chocolate zucchini bread recipe!

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  2. Have you tried Margo's faux crab cakes?

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  3. hey, I need some more zucchini recipes! See my post for July 10 where I'm requesting more due to my friend's CSA bounty.
    I do truly pity you with 10 zucchini plants. Seriously.

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  4. Reb- No, though that rings a bell.... Is it a blog post?....

    Margo- I'll post a few in the next few days, and gather some more for later in the summer. Ten zucchini plants is a problem that makes me laugh, for the most part, but I really do think it's a sin to waste food, so I've been working really hard to get them to people who will use them, if I can't use it all myself.

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  5. Hey! I just had the most delicious zucchini-based supper: roasted new potatoes, red onions and zucchini. I tossed the veg. with oil, coarse salt and pepper. Absolutely fab.

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