Wordless Wednesday: The Zucchini

Last week, I pulled the last loaf of chocolate zucchini bread out of the freezer. It was kind of a bittersweet (or should I say, semisweet) moment.  But something tells me our zucchini bread days of the year are anything but behind us.

Yes, that is a zucchini the size of my forearm.

I know, I know. I said I was going to pull up the zucchini last week. But I didn't get around to it and now I'm paying for my negligence with many, many loaves of chocolate zucchini.

And I thought that cuke was big . . . 

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The Garden: One Last Post

After a couple hard frosts in mid-September, I assumed our gardening days were behind us. And looking at the current state of the raised bed, I think it was a fair assumption. Not that our veggie gardens this year ever looked particularly manicured, but they've definitely looked better than this: way better.

But although the raised bed may look like a wild beast trampled through it multiple times (always a possibility, although I think its bedraggled look is completely compliments of frost damage), I was surprised to find plenty of things still growing. The mammoth sunflowers are still hail and hardy, although they're too top heavy to show their pretty faces.

A couple days back, I picked over a pound of green beans and just yesterday, I discovered this growing among the trampled squash vines:

Yes, my friends, it's the zucchini plant that refuses to say die. I picked two more zucchinis off the plant last week and it looks like we'll have at least two more. After that, it's so long zucchinis because I'm pulling these suckers up either today or tomorrow. Sometimes there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

We've had Swiss Chard growing in the shady, windy, lakeside terrace gardens all season. They've never gotten bigger than seedling size. After three years of trying to coax things to grow in these gardens, I think it's time to throw the towel in. Nothing will ever thrive in this rocky soil. So this fall, we're giving the terrace gardens a perennial makeover and we're moving the soil from the roadside raised bed (which has also never thrived) over to a sunnier part of the yard and building a couple new raised beds for next year. While I may have given up on the terrace gardens, I have not given up on the Swiss Chard. I moved it to an inside pot a couple weeks back and the plants have already doubled in size. Who knows how it'll do as a houseplant, but with any luck, we'll be eating chard around (American) Thanksgiving time.   

Although our tomato plants are now dead, brown skeletons of themselves, we still have plenty of backyard tomatoes to enjoy. All the green ones we saved before the frost have been steadily ripening on the kitchen table. Andy and I made up a big batch of "end of the season" chili last week, using our own tomatoes, tomatillos, and jalapenos. While I feel like we had a motherload of tomatoes this year, now that we're transitioning into winter menus (aka, chilis, lasagnas, etc.), I'm reminded of just how many canned tomatoes we go through each winter. I'm tempted to plant twice as many tomatoes next year. So much for giving up on gardening, eh. ;)

I'm hoping we'll spend a good portion of these next couple days off pulling up dead plants, creating a second compost pile and maybe building those new raised beds. A gardener's work is never done.

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The Dog Days

I've recently stumbled across a couple quotes about August.

The first one was shared with me by an Of Woods and Words fan: 

"The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color." — Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting 

The second quote I found while leafing through the latest issue of Minnesota Monthly:

"If the calendar were a family, August would be the great, bosomy aunt who turned down her first proposal and never again had the chance to marry. Here she comes, all smothering warmth, smelling of Aqua Net, and accompanied by a slight sense of sadness for opportunities missed." -- Shannon Olson.

I found the second quote last night when I'd finally put my feet up after an afternoon and evening of what some people might call homesteading and what I prefer to refer to as "fridge damage control."  It all started when I went out to survey the gardens and came back with four more large zucchinis in my hands. Which brought our total of harvested zucchinis and yellow summer squash that had not been transformed into anything edible and delicious up to eight. EIGHT. 

Too much zucchini

"Okay," I said to Andy, holding up the latest zucchini harvest, "who can we plant bomb?" It's that awful time of year when everyone has zucchinis (too many zucchinis) and there's no one out there to accept the (gracious, selfless) gifts of zucchini. And so, instead of setting up a "free zucchini (!!!)" stand on the side of the road, I turned on the oven, and got busy. I cranked out a double batch of both zucchini lemon muffins and chocolate zucchini bread, and chopped up two of the larger zucchini to dehydrate for later use in soups and chilis. Before I dealt with the zucchini, I had to do some reorganizing in the fridge, which resulted in a vat of fruit salad and another cold savory salad. 

"Congratulations," Andy said as I worked to get the water bath canner up to a boil to seal four quarts of blueberry pie filling. "You've successfully made it 20 degrees warmer in the cabin than it is outside."  

At the time, the thermometer in the kitchen said the indoor temp was 87, while the outdoor temp was down to 73. (Thanks for exaggerating, Andy.)

Steamy stuff

I'm not going to lie. When I looked at all those zucchinis piled on my counter, my first thought wasn't a prideful "we totally grew that." Nope, it was a feeling of sheer, body-surging horror: "What the heck am I going to do with all of these." By the time I got around to the blueberry pie filling (which had really been my sole ambition for the day), I stood over the pot, stirring the 25 cups of steaming berries and muttering under my breath "just fucking boil already." I think I lost points off my "happy homemaker ala1950s image" for the profanity. C'est la vie. 

So yes, the first week of August is certainly hanging hot and heavy in these parts. Thank goodness there's a lake 20 paces or so from the sweltering stove to provide instant heat relief.

As for the sense of missed opportunities, already Andy and I are heading out to the gardens to survey both the successes and failures and saying those fateful words: "Next year . . ."

Next year? Already the kohlrabi and broccoli have had their time in the sun. The evenings are becoming noticeably shorter. The first load of winter firewood has been ordered. It won't be long until that autumn crispness starts to sneak into the air.

But for now I'm planning to enjoy this first week of August, with all its warmth, all its sunshine, and all its zucchini.

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