Zucchini Lovefest Now Live

You can now view my post Zucchini Lovefest at Lightening Online. There were lots of fantastic recipe suggestions for using up any excess zucchini. :)

I feel a little bit "zucchini'd out" this afternoon. I've been busy grated zucchini and have made some Chocolate Zucchini Bread.

My 45cm blackjack yielded 10 cups of grated zucchini!!!! I'm pretty stoked with that.

For tea tonight? Katy's Vegetable Pie.

Katy sent in:

We love vegetable pie! The children especially. Grate 2 carrots, 2 zucchini, 1 cup cheese, 5 eggs, 1 cup flour, S&P, bacon or chicken if you'd like. Mix it all up in a big bowl, and cook on 180 for about 45 minutes. Yummy!

I hope it's as much of a hit with our kids as it is with hers!

I've also been busy cutting kernels of a few corn cobs that hadn't quite fully developed. Ended up yielding a 500g bag of kernels for the freezer so was worth my effort. :)

I Was Wrong

Here I was thinking that my blackjack zucchini plants only wanted to grow small zucchini's. Not that I think that's a bad thing as such.

Obviously before we went away I missed a couple that were ready to be picked. This Blackjack Zucchini is 45cm long!!!! I guess that means it's a marrow (?) and not a zucchini but nonetheless, it'll still yield more serves to add to my cooking than the tiny little blackjacks I've been picking to date.


The look on my kids faces when they saw this on the bench was just priceless!!!!!

All up I ended up picking 5 zucchini's today. 3 Blackjacks and 2 Green. Usually the Green zucchini's make the blackjacks look like dwarf's. Not so this time.

Here I was thinking my zucchini harvest was coming to an end. Then THIS happens. LOL. I'm not complaining. Just surprised. It would seem that zucchini plants are the kind that keep on giving and giving. :)

Treasure Hunt

I think I've found a positive to a wild, wandering garden.

Surprises!!!!

Last night I poked my head into the middle of my corn crop, just to see how many cobs are left and whether I've missed any of the bigger ones. It won't be too much longer and the corn will be finished I think.

Lo and behold..... look what I found....


A CUCUMBER!!!!

Frightened off by the evil zucchini, the tiny tendrils of the cucumber plant wrapped their way around the tall strong corn stalk, hoping to somehow camouflage themselves amongst the greenery.

The clever cucumber has thwarted the efforts of the evil zucchini and will LIVE to see another day!!!! Yaaaahhhh for the cucumber!!!! :)

I also found some shrivelled up pumpkins so I guess it wasn't such a good idea for the pumpkin plant to hide amongst the corn as the poor fruit didn't get fertilised. Never mind, there are other pumpkins growing.

It has occurred to me that had I gotten myself a little better organised and manually fertilized, I may have gotten more fruit from the pumpkin and zucchini. However, I am a somewhat lazy gardener so I'm happy to see that nature has taken it's course at least some of the time.

Maybe next year I'll work on that.....

Zucchini

I've been growing 2 varieties of zucchini this year.

1. Green zucchini (I *think* that's what it was called). Grown from seed. 3 seeds total in the packet. Germinated no worries. Took over the garden. Any zucchini not picked grew into nice big fat marrows (well that's what I'm told they're called when they get bigger) which were still perfect for grating and freezing to use in spaghetti bolognese and other recipes. Has fruited well, cost very little and continued to flower throughout the season.

2. Black Jack Zucchini. Grown from seedlings. So cost slightly more although I got half a dozen plants instead of 3. Slightly smaller plants. Still choked out my cucumbers (because I planted them too close together). Currently invading my corn crop (but not harming it any). At least I *think* it's the zucchini growing through there and not the pumpking (I'm such a knowledgable gardener aren't I???? LOL). Fruit is a LOT smaller and it's not fruiting quite as prolifically. I'm also finding the fruit is a LOT firmer. The skin is tougher and there are less seeds. The family don't seem to enjoy eating it as much as they do the green zucchini.

Notes for next year:

* try to grow only from seeds - 3 plants is PLENTY. Not that we've got a glut of zucchini's or anything. Enough for eating plus a bit to go in the freezer.

* I've been able to trim some of the outer leaves of plants without it seeming to affect the plant's overall health. This has limited the amount it has smothered the rest of the garden.

* Allow it a little more room to grow. I've read that zucchini plants can be trained to grow upwards but haven't had much success getting them to do that. Need to see if a different variety might be easier to train up a trellis.

* Possibly plant in bed 1 in front of corn so that if they go wild, they can grow into the corn and not all over the tomotoes (which are a little more fragile).