Staying on top of the zukes.
As I sit in my living room this early morning drinking my coffee, I can see the vegetable patch out the back windows of our house. One of the most prominent features of the garden right now are the brightly coloured blooms on the zucchini plants.
I always grow zucchini in my garden as I find it one of the most rewarding vegetable plants to grow. In a very wet growing season, some plants can be lost to rotting, but generally the plants require little fussing and produce more fruit than I know what to do with. I’ve made zucchini pickles zucchini soup, stuffed zucchini, zucchini bread and my favourite zucchini recipe so far, zucchini fritters.
Staying on top of the harvest is the trick to keeping my husband (and myself) from getting totally sick of zucchini. I try to pick the fruit when it is still small and sweet and at its tastiest. I throw chunks of it into salads, curries, pastas and soups.
What throws a wrench into this plan is that every year around this time, I take an annual trip to meet my blogging friends at the BlogHer conference, which is taking place in Chicago again this year. This is what I found when I returned from that trip two summers ago:
Lots of big, impressive-looking fruit with very little flavour and not of much use other than as a door stop (or perhaps entering a contest in the county fair).
So this morning, after my coffee is done I’ll be harvesting the zucchini that’s ready to be picked. I’ve had to add “harvest zucchini” to my list of pre-conference tasks so that when I return on Sunday, I won’t be plagued with monster zucchini that I’ll have to pawn off on neighbours and friends!
I always make resolutions like this — but somehow things seem to get crazy busy before a trip, and I don’t follow through. Or I think, what am I going to do with them after I’ve picked ‘em? You can have a wonderful time with a clear conscience. Congrats!
Judy Lowe/Diggin’ It´s last blog ..A moon tree and space tomatoes
I have a question. My Zuchinni is taking over my garden, the leaves are covering my pepper and bean plants. It is my first time planting Zuchini and I will be sure to give it more room next year.
I attempted to tie it up to my fence and it is looking pretty sad right now. Still alive, but sad all lopped over… I hope it will recover and turn itself around (although we haven’t had much sun to draw its attention). What else can I do to tame this plant?