Was it just two weeks ago that I picked my first zucchini? I hardly remember, except that it was melt-in-your mouth kind of good. Since then we’ve eaten 6 or so of them. We had cucumbers, a few cherry tomatoes, plenty of peppers and a meal of greenbeans last week.
And suddenly, I’m starting to think we might need a produce stand. Here’s a two day take on my harvest—after we ate at least three zucs and five cucumbers and a few peppers. I’m so excited!
There’s so much I don’t really know about gardening in this climate. I have no idea what the splotches on leaves are and it took me a bit of googling to figure out what was eating my beans, and that I really do have to hand pick those beetles off the leaves. I’m thinking in the years to come, if I am still down south, I’ll have a better grip on it. So far, besides planting, watering and weeding much less often than I should have, we’ve done nothing.
But for all that I don’t do…the garden is growing, and it is growing fast. Let’s hope I can figure out how to make it survive as long as possible!
two weeks of garden growth
Oh, it all looks wonderful! Great job! Jealous of those beautiful beans (in a Christ like way of COURSE, heh) ours are “eh” but I do have zucchini out the wazoo. Any good recipes? I’m going to make zucchini relish, and shred and freeze some.
Zucchini has a way of totally going crazy, no matter where you live! I don’t get it, but I won’t complain. The stupid squash bugs are trying hard to kill them off already and I’m afraid I won’t win the war. But I’m going to make it last as long as I can!
I looove just pan steamed zucs with onion as a side to almost anything. But I make a pretty awesome pesto type sauce with zucchini. It is vegan, but you could modify it to your hearts content. I got the recipe from here: http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2009/09/creamy-zucchini-and-basil-soup.html
I modified it, of course. (can’t seem to leave a recipe be!) I didn’t use vegetable broth: just the water off cooking the zucs, plus some. Added some salt, touch of soy sauce and some herbs. I kind of forget what else I did, but I think I cut back on the nuts and did the seasoning to my personal preferences. I’m guessing one could put some cream or something in the place of the nuts. I put it over pasta (bows!) and even my skeptical and semi picky brother in law who was staying with us at the time ate several servings. ;)
I dug up a couple recipes I hope to try soon:
http://curiouscountrycook.blogspot.com/2012/03/zucchini-tots.html
http://vegandad.blogspot.ca/2011/07/creamy-zucchini-farfalle.html
My mom always made loads of zucchini bread and added some shreds to brownies. (SO YUMMY!) But I haven’t decided what all I’ll do with mine yet.
oh, one more! I thought it might be fun to try these: http://vittlesandbits.blogspot.com/2012/03/baked-zucchini-chips.html
Oh wow, that zucchini pesto sounds DIVINE! Definitely going to try that. I was just looking at making zucchini chips last night. I wonder how they would do in the dehydrator… Might have to slice one up and see. ;) Thanks for all the recipes!
My horticulturist friend said that if you’ll turn the leaves of the squash plants over, and find the egg clusters of the squash bugs, you can (appropriately) squash them with a gloved finger and it will help control the population. It bruises the leaf, but does less damage than the bugs do! She was also telling me that we can plant squash toward the end of the season, and reap a fall crop. I don’t know if you’re far enough south to do that, but we stay fairly warm well to the end of October and are able to do that.
Oh, I’ll have to check the leaves again! I haven’t been seeing any leaves…it is like they are inserting them into the stems of the plants. Maybe they are a different kind? I keep catching and beheading them as fast as I can find them…but they are still keeping ahead of me. I will definitely try a second crop! maybe by the end of July they will be gone and I doubt the squash will mind the heat much! :)
Now that is impressive! And looks yummy, too. :)
When God gives you more zucchini then you can eat in a meal, make zucchini patties, and put them into bags and then into the freezer for the time of zucchini famine. That is what a lady of wisdom taught me last year, and I’m glad she did. We thought they were an excellent use of freezer space. There is a recipe on my blog. It is gluten-free, but just use wheat based ingredients, if you would like, easy substitutes. : )
I’ll look it up, thanks! Unfortunately, my freezer is super tiny. I don’t have room for more than a few things so freezing stuff is sort of not a really good option for me. But I definitely look forward to sharing and to eating lots and lots of yummy zucchini stuff while the season lasts! :D
Look wonderful!
I want to try breaded Zucchini when ours start producing! :-)
Zucchini can really go crazy, can’t it? Ours are still blooming but once they start… watch out! =D I’m impressed with how fast the garden grew in 2 weeks! Do you have corn on your stalks yet?
I definitely think you need a produce stand….make a little money for your effort!
That’s definitely impressive. Our garden is quickly becoming just potatoes, since I have yet to get anything else in the ground :-P
Oh yum! Potatoes are good though. I need to dig mine.
I just love the growth photo – too cool! How did you do that? Blink real hard? LOL It all looks beautiful. Hope I can see it in person…
It is actually a .gif! I used a program online to combine the two since my usual program died on me! Hope you can come by and see it too. I promise to share if my poor plants survive the bugs. ;)
Yummy! I’m a major vegetable fan, especially garden produce! Enjoy! Makes me miss my days of major gardening!! :)
Thank you! Hope you can get a garden again soon! This is my first in a number of years and I’m so excited. :D
It looks great. :) You are way ahead of me–I’m planting pumpkins and squash and zuchini today. We have squash vine borers here which kill the plants very easily–I’m planting a bit last to hopefully partially avoid them.
Ah! I think that might be what is getting mine. I’m fighting back as best I can but I think I’ll have to do a second planting, too. At least the season is long enough!