Zucchini Invasion

Yesterday was a beautiful day with clear sunny skies and humidity down around 50%. The temperature itself never got much above 75 degrees and the breeze blowing up the hill from 9 AM until around 7 PM made things incredibly comfortable. As a result we did damn little around the Aerie yesterday.

Terry cooked up a nice zucchini and yellow squash casserole to go with some boneless chicken breast. While it was delicious, it was also an act of self defense. She had picked up the yellow squash at the "free" corner I mentioned a couple days ago but the zucchini are all coming from the eight plants I put out this spring.

Please understand that when we lived in New Jersey, I would put out eight or ten zucchini VINES and the VINE borers would attack them and we would get all of five or six zucchini squash if we were lucky. The plants I purchased at Agway were BUSH zucchini--a variety I had no experience with. Apparently BUSH zucchini are impervious to the VINE borer. Heck one has even survived having a bear sit upon it.

Anyway, I bought this little four pack of baby zucchini. Each cell contained two tiny little plants having just their paired seed leaves. They looked so cute and fragile. So fragile in fact, that I did not even separate the plants from the first two cells and simply placed each cell 18 inches from the other in the soil of the raised bed in front of the cabin where they would get lots and lots of sunlight. The other two cells I did manage to separate the plants and put them in the raised bed near the bird feeders where they don't get quite as much sunlight but there's more organic material in the soil.

Well, let me tell you! Those cute little plants have grown and grown and grown! They have produced one huge orange-yellow flower after another. Now some of those flowers are males and stand upright and proud on a thin little stalk. After a day or so, they wilt and fall off. The other flowers, not quite so large and deeper down beneath the huge plant leaves are the female flowers. They are to be found on the ends of short, thick stalks that will become zucchini squash if all goes according to plan.

Hooo-weee! Something went according to plan. Not long after I brought home those four zucchini from the neighbors to be made into a dozen zucchini breads, OUR plants started to produce. We have had zucchini oiled and spiced up on the grill, zucchini slaw, and now zucchini casserole. And still they are stacked up on the counter llike cord wood.



Or perhaps it's more like bombs on the flight deck of a WWII aircraft carrier. This could be an invasion!



There are currently 13 squash in the stack right now and that is after using 3 yesterday in the casserole. Terry says there will be 4 or 5 ready to harvest this afternoon. She has purchased more vanilla, sugar and flour. There's still some room in the freezer. I can see zucchini bread becoming a regular at the Audubon Society meetings and the Embroidery Arts Guild meetings (6 meetings a month). After all, I'll need room in the freezer when I get my deer---or two.