Do you grow things that are easy, just because they are easy?

Zucchini, the curse that keeps on giving.

4:10pm PST, 68*F, Cloudy (it’s been lightly raining off and on)

I must admit I enjoy some zucchini. Made certain ways. But not a plethora of it. I like it sliced thin and grilled. A little in stir fry. I do not like it mushy. It’s excellent as an ingredient in zucchini bread. And although I’ve never tried it, I bet it’s good in mock apple pie. I’ve just always had apples to make pie with so never felt the need to substitute with squash. I mean, why try to imitate perfection?

It’s incredibly easy to grow. I start them in pots as transplants here otherwise voles and mice eat the seeds and the ground is too cool for a quick germination. But most places it’s easy to just plant the big seeds where they are to grow. And give them plenty of room. The leaves get huge. Rhubarb plant huge.

A few plants is enough to feed an average family. You know, like 4 people. Not talking about the ones with a whole compound of kids. You’d probably have to plant a few more to feed that many gaping maws.

I like to pick them on the smaller size. It’s more palatable to me and as a single person I don’t like trying to find ways to eat them when they are baseball bat sized. In this case bigger is not better. (In my own opinion of course.) I save my size appreciation for pumpkins and kilted Scottish men in raunchy summertime reads.

These one in the photo I just took, above, are a bit too big for my preference but I’m still going to use them. They will go into my dehydrator in halved slices for future soups. I may also shred some, for future me baking muffins. I can dry those too and rehydrate as needed.

I’ve already done one batch of calendula petals. It’s in full bloom again and I will harvest tomorrow and dry some more. For tea and other uses. I think this is a very pretty and uniform growing variety, it’s called “Oopsy Daisy” for anyone interested. Of course, I’ll probably save seeds to share even though I have more in the original seed packet. I don’t need to save seeds from these this year. I only grew a couple.