The zucchini is coming …every day …two and three at a time! And I only planted one plant!

Here are a few ways we’ve been creatively using up these profusely growing vegetables (wonder if I can make a bio fuel out of them!):

Zucchini Parmesan: Use your favorite eggplant Parmesan recipe but substitute zucchini for eggplant. We made it the other night and it was an instant favorite.

Freeze it: My mom grates her zucchini now, and then freezes two cups in a freezer bag for use later on. Most zucchini recipes call for 2 cups. Freeze it now and make some tasty bread later.

Sauté it with some onions and teriyaki sauce.

Make zucchini pancakes – use your favorite potato pancake recipe but substitute the z for the p!

Don’t feel like cooking? Make zucchini people out of it. Fun for the kids, allow them to decorate the zucchini with yarn for hair, other vegetables for eyes…use your imagination. Then grate it up for some zucchini bread.

What is your favorite way to use up this vegetable?? Anyone have any good ides for yellow squash? That’s next on my list of what “not” to plant next year!

Thanks! Happy gardening and cooking!

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zucchini, squash, summer garden, zucchini uses

by sduncan
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The gardening season is just about here. I’m getting ready to plant our vegetable garden which has done very well in years past, but it has also been known to be very productive in weeds (if only we could eat them)! This year I’m going to try to stay ahead of the game.

Anyway, as I map out the garden this season, I started thinking about what our most favorite vegetable is to grow. While I love the fresh taste of tomatoes, they are not my favorite plants in the garden. The plants usually need some type of staking or else the tomatoes grow on the ground and get rotten before you pick them, so they’re good and will be a part of the garden, but they’re not my favorite.

Cucumbers are up there - we love to eat them and usually, if the summer weather doesn’t get too hot or dry, we can get a great harvest of fresh, tasty cucumbers.

But I think at our house the favorite vegetable to grow has to be zucchini, and it’s not because we love to eat zucchini bread. Over the past few years, we have grown some of the biggest, baddest zucchinis we’ve ever seen! Some are the size of small baseball bats! I’m not joking! We’ve gone away for a few days and come back to GIANT green zucchinis in our garden. I must admit these giants usually end up in the compost, but they are great for some laughs (and sometimes we even use them as bats with soft balls!).

What’s your favorite veggie to grow?
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favorite vegetables, vegetables to grow, planting advice, zucchini

by sduncan
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Did you know that a cyclone and a hurricane are the same type of storm, with different names. In the Western Pacific, they are also called typhoons, and around Australia they are known as willy-willys.

What about tornadoes?

In terms of overall size, a tornado is much smaller storm system which meteorologists suspect evolve from the rotation of clouds associated with severe thunderstorms. While a hurricane can attain a diameter of 300 to 500-miles, a tornado is generally less than a mile in diameter. However, while the peak wind gust in a hurricane can reach perhaps 200 miles per hour (in the most extreme case), the most extreme tornado winds have been estimated to reach to over 300 miles per hour!

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cyclone, hurricane, tornado, weather definitions

by sduncan
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Start Preparing the Soil for Your Spring Garden
By Putting Your Garden to Bed Before Winter!

One of the nice things about late autumn and early winter is it frees up time from weeding and gardening to take care of other things that were put on hold during spring and summer.

So why would we mention preparing the soil for a spring garden at this time of year? Because the method we’re about to suggest won’t take much muscle power or time and will give you a tremendous jumpstart you’ll be glad to get when spring wheels into motion.

Select a site for a new garden plot? Cover the ground with a heavy black tarp now and secure it into place with blocks, bricks or stones. Not only will the weeds and grass be killed, but the black tarp will absorb extra sunshine and help warm the soil, enabling you to start spring planting two to three weeks earlier than usual. That’s a real jumpstart. So, get out the black tarp or heavy plastic sheeting and lay claim to your new spring garden site! When spring rolls around, the black covering will stay in place to continue to add heat to the soil. Then you’ll cut openings in the sheeting to directly plant seeds or transplants.

©Deborah Tukua, co-author of Pearls of Garden Wisdom.

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by Farmers Almanac Staff
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