| NOREEN'S GARDEN SEED CO. · EST. MAY 1999 |
ZUCCHINI
Variety: "Surplus"
Summer squash, Cucurbita pepo
|
Days to maturity: 50 · Days to regret: 51
Sow one plant per family. Sow six at your own risk.
NET WT: 171 LBS (and counting)
|
The Great Zucchini Surplus of 1999
a true story from eastern Kansas, told by the woman responsible
My name is Noreen Duggins. I am 49 years old, I have been the secretary at our church for eleven years, and in the middle of May I planted six zucchini plants. That was the mistake.
In my defense, the packet had about forty seeds in it and it seemed a shame to waste them. Ricky said "six?" and I said "they're little," and they were, for about three weeks. I have been fighting the results since the Fourth of July. This page is my record of the war, the weapons I have used, my recipes, and my honest advice for next year, which is to listen to Ricky, and I don't say that often.
Everything that came out of the patch, weighed on the bathroom scale in a laundry basket (minus the basket). Weeks run Sunday through Saturday.
| Week | Lbs | |
| June 27 – July 3 | 1 | |
| July 4 – 10 | 3 | |
| July 11 – 17 | 9 | |
| July 18 – 24 | 16 | |
| July 25 – 31 | 21 | |
| Aug. 1 – 7 | 24 | |
| Aug. 8 – 14 | 22 | |
| Aug. 15 – 21 | 19 | |
| Aug. 22 – 28 | 17 | |
| Aug. 29 – Sept. 4 | 14 | |
| Sept. 5 – 11 | 12 | |
| Sept. 12 – 18 | 8 | |
| Sept. 19 – 25 | 5 | |
| TOTAL | 171 | pounds. One hundred seventy-one. |
Notes from the front: The first zucchini of the summer, picked July 2, was six inches long, and I took a picture of it like it was a grandchild. Mid-August, one of the six plants wilted overnight. When I looked at the base of the stem I found a soft spot with what looked like wet sawdust coming out of it: squash vine borer. I am sorry to say I was relieved. In September the leaves on the other five got that white, dusty look of powdery mildew, which happens to nearly everybody's squash by the end of a humid summer, and production finally began to slow. As of this writing five plants are still standing and still producing, but slower, like they are tired too.
| Disposal Strategies, Ranked |
Ranked by how many zucchini actually left the house, from best to worst. Ratings are out of five zucchini.
1. The food pantry. Rating: 5 of 5
I should have thought of this in July. The food pantry in town takes fresh garden produce on Tuesday mornings and was glad to have it. Forty-one pounds since August 10, every one of them wanted. If you are drowning too, call your local pantry and ask. Most will take it if it's fresh and not giant.
|
2. The church potluck. Rating: 4 of 5
I am the church secretary. I know when every potluck is. Zucchini bread at the July fellowship supper, zucchini casserole at the August one, fritters at the Labor Day picnic, and a "garden salad" at Wednesday night supper that was, if we're being honest, mostly zucchini. Everything got eaten. Pastor Gold took seconds of the casserole and asked what was in it, and I said "love," which is true. I lose one zucchini on the rating because by September people had started to look at my dishes before they took any.
|
3. The porch drop after dark. Rating: 3 of 5
Two zucchini in a grocery sack, set on a porch, doorbell, run. Ricky drove. I did this eleven times in July and August. It works, but I am 49, and I am not as fast as I was, and one neighbor turned on the porch light while I was still on the step and we had to stand there and talk about the weather. Also, one sack came back. It was on our porch two nights later, with a third zucchini added. I have my suspicions.
|
4. The free basket at the office door. Rating: 2 of 5
A bushel basket by the church office door with a sign: FREE, PLEASE TAKE. People took them, but on August 17 I came in and found more zucchini in the basket than I had put there. Somebody in this congregation is doing exactly what I am doing. I have not found out who. I am watching.
|
5. Mailing one to my sister in Phoenix. Rating: 1 of 5
A ten-inch zucchini, wrapped in newspaper, in a shoe box, Priority Mail. It cost more to send than a zucchini costs in any store in Arizona, as my sister Julie pointed out when she called. "You know they have these here," she said. "You know they grow them here." I told her it was a Kansas zucchini and that was different. She has not asked for another.
|
6. Lon. Rating: 0 of 5 (now)
Lon Littlejohn is our church custodian and the nicest man in Kansas. In July he took eleven zucchini off my hands, one at a time, and said every time how much his wife liked them. In August I learned his wife does not like them. I learned this because Lon now goes into the boiler room when he sees me coming down the hall with a grocery sack. I have told him it is only my lunch. He doesn't believe me, and he's right not to.
|
| The Largest Zucchini of 1999 |
LENGTH: 22 INCHES
measured with a yardstick from the hardware store
WEIGHT: 6 LBS. 10 OZ.
weighed by standing on the bathroom scale holding it,
then without it, and subtracting
FOUND: Monday, August 9, 1999
under a leaf, where it had been hiding for at least a week
|
I check the patch every single day and I still missed this one. It was lying under the biggest leaf at the back of the third plant, and by the time I found it, it was the size of a baseball bat. Ricky wanted to take it to the county fair, but the fair was over. So I cut it open, scooped out the seeds, which were the size of fingernails, grated what was left, and got fourteen cups. That is seven batches of the bread recipe below, which is fourteen loaves. Our freezer is full of them. If you visit us this winter, you are leaving with a loaf.
When I put this page up in August I asked if anyone else had done things they weren't proud of. Oh, my, have they.
|
"I sent zucchini in my husband's lunch every day for a week, sliced, with ranch dressing. On Friday he asked me if we were having money problems."
— Heather Heiden, Missouri
"I have been hiding grated zucchini in my grandchildren's chocolate cake for two summers. They don't know. Their mother doesn't know. If you know my grandchildren, please don't tell them."
— Ora Kearse, Oklahoma
"I entered my biggest one in our town's largest squash contest and lost to a pumpkin. It was not a fair fight."
— Gordon Spraggins, Nebraska
"In 1962 I planted twelve. My wife has brought it up every summer since. That is thirty-seven summers."
— Sidney Huston, Iowa
"Somebody left two on my porch in July with the doorbell trick. I waited two nights and left them on theirs, with one of mine. I am not proud. I am also not sorry."
— Douglas Rockwell, Kansas
|
Douglas, I would like to know what town you live in.
All three tested many, many times this summer, in my own kitchen, on my own family and congregation.
Noreen's Zucchini Bread
Makes 2 loaves. Uses 2 cups. I always double it.
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 cups grated zucchini (don't peel it, don't squeeze it)
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Heat the oven to 350°. Grease and flour two 8x4 loaf pans. Beat the eggs until foamy, then beat in the oil, sugar and vanilla. Stir in the zucchini. In another bowl stir together the flour, salt, soda, baking powder and cinnamon, then stir them into the zucchini mixture just until it's all wet. Fold in the nuts. Divide between the pans and bake 50 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick in the middle comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in the pans, then turn out on a rack. Freezes beautifully, which is lucky.
|
Fellowship Supper Zucchini Casserole
Serves 12. Uses about 2 pounds.
6 cups sliced zucchini (1/4 inch thick)
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup butter, divided
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt and some pepper
1 cup crushed saltine crackers
Heat the oven to 350° and grease a 9x13 pan. Melt 1/4 cup of the butter in a big skillet and cook the zucchini and onion over medium heat, stirring, until just tender, about 8 minutes. Drain off any liquid. In a bowl mix the eggs, sour cream, cheese, salt and pepper, and fold in the zucchini. Spread it in the pan. Melt the rest of the butter, toss it with the cracker crumbs, and sprinkle on top. Bake 30 to 35 minutes, until set in the middle and golden on top.
|
Zucchini Fritters
Makes about 12. Uses 2 cups. Ricky's favorite.
2 cups grated zucchini
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 green onions, chopped
pepper
vegetable oil for frying
Toss the zucchini with the salt and let it sit 10 minutes. Then wrap it in a clean dish towel and squeeze out all the water you can. This is the secret; if you skip it they fall apart. Mix the zucchini with the egg, flour, cheese, onions and pepper. Heat about 1/4 inch of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Drop in heaping tablespoons, flatten them a little, and fry 2 to 3 minutes a side until golden brown. Drain on paper towels and eat them hot.
|
| Honest Advice for Next Year |
- One or two plants are plenty. For a family of four, one healthy plant will keep you in zucchini all summer. Two if you love it. Six if you have lost your mind.
- Pick them at six to eight inches. That's when they are tender and the seeds are tiny. Bigger ones are fine for bread, but they are mostly water and seeds.
- Look every day in July and August. In hot weather a zucchini can go from just right to a baseball bat in two or three days. Lift the leaves. They hide.
- Don't worry when the first flowers fall off. The first blossoms are usually male flowers, and they drop. The female flowers have a tiny zucchini at the base, and those come along soon after.
- You can eat the flowers. Pick the male blossoms, dip them in batter and fry them. It's one less zucchini, in a way.
- Watch for squash vine borers in early summer. A plant that wilts all at once, with a mushy spot and sawdusty stuff at the base of the stem, has one. Covering young plants with floating row cover keeps the moths off. Take it off when the plants flower, so the bees can get in.
- Check under the leaves for squash bugs and their little bronze-colored egg clusters, and scrape them off.
- Powdery mildew comes late in the summer to almost everybody. Give the plants room so air can move through, and water the ground in the morning, not the leaves.
- Listen to your husband when he says "six?" Just this once.
Visitors to the patch so far:
    
(none of you took a zucchini)
Send me your confessions, your recipes and your sympathy:
[email protected]
Last updated Saturday, September 25, 1999
|
GeoCities.us
» Orchard » Patch
