Looking to grow a plant that is easy to grow, and puts out more food than you could ever eat? A plant that makes you madly search the internet, the library, the bookshelf for any new recipe to make it taste different? And a plant that actually makes you glad that fall is coming so that the frost will kill the darn thing? If so, this is the plant for you. Ooh - guess that’s not your typical ode, is it?
Total summer squash harvest: 166.25 lbs.
How many plants?
Two plants is all we had of zucchini. Two. And one crooked neck yellow squash.
What types?
Like the tomatoes, I started growing these before I learned how to grow from seed. So I don’t even know what variety they are - the seedlings were from the local nursery. This year, I’ll plant some heirloom varieties of summer squash.
How much would that cost in the grocery store?
If I were to buy that many organic zucchinis at around $0.99/lb (I think that’s what they cost in the summer), I would spend $164.59.
[As I mentioned in the tomato post, while we wouldn’t buy all of those zucchinis in the store, food is food - you have to eat. We may have eaten more zucchinis than we used to (an understatement). But one way or another, those zucchinis supplanted other food we would have purchased.]
How much did the plants cost?
The plants were $2.50/each, for a total of around $7.50. They will cost less this year, when I grow them from seed.
Below are photos of each summer squash harvest.
(If you’re feeding via RSS, click back to the original post to see the photos!)
7.08.07 7.11.07 7.13.07
7.17.07 7.19.07 7.20.07
7.21.07 7.22.07 7.23.07
7.26.07 7.27.07 7.28.07
7.31.07b 8.01.07 8.02.07
8.04.07 8.05.07 8.06.07
8.09.07 8.15.07 8.17.07
8.21.07 8.24.07 8.26.07
9.03.07 9.05.07 9.08.07
9.11.07 9.20.07 9.25.07
9.28.07 9.29.07 10.10.07
Why do the harvest photos stop there?
Not because the plants died and ceased producing. But because we stopped harvesting the zucchinis and started using them for compost. We even used some on the kitchen table as decoration - like gourds. They lasted for months without decomposing.
There was one night when Matt said, “I miss zucchini.” I stared at him blankly. “You do?” “Yeah,” he said, “I wish it wasn’t dead.” I sheepishly admitted that it actually wasn’t dead, I’d just been ignoring it, and went out and picked this:
10.19.07
And two weeks later he pleaded for more and I picked this:
10.31.07
Then we froze a few more to store in our tiny little freezer, and we were done with zucchini.
You Mean You Let them Die?
I admit it: I didn’t run out in the garden to save the zucchini from the rains like I did for the tomatoes. Zucchini glut can provoke, well, some running away from that part of the garden and just turning a blind eye when it begins to kick the bucket. Look at this picture (right, taken on November 26th): it still put out zucchini, even after the frosts came and it was already decomposing in the rain.
What will I do differently this year?
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1. Yeah, GROW LESS and grow a variety of summer squash. One zucchini plant is enough for us and the food bank. And I probably won’t grow crooked neck again - they were good, but not wowing.
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2. I will grow them from seed, and I will grow open-pollinated heirloom squash. These tasted very good, but there are some truly amazing heirlooms out there.
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3. This year as we will plant them much earlier - around mid-March. We didn’t plant our zucchinis until early June (we moved here at the beginning of May), so we didn’t start harvesting until July. Hmmm... that means more squash? Yikes.
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4. I will give away more zucchinis. Letting them rot made me feel guilty - we can trade produce with neighbors and give the rest away to the food bank. I wrote more about this here.
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5. I will plant them further apart. I had no idea how big these plants would get. I’ll space them several feet apart this year, as I think they depleted the soil pretty quickly.
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The above picture is me with zucchini growing out of my ears.
Little did I know way back in early July...
What else are you interested in knowing? Please feel free to ask me questions in the comment section below, or via email, about how we did this, what we’d do differently, etc!
