Tag Archives: zucchini

Great zucchini recipe

I found this recipe while searching for something to do with all of the zucchini that I have been harvesting. It sounded pretty good since I like chili, and I really want to use as much of the zucchini as I can. We made it this evening (with the added garbanzo beans) and it was awesome! The next batch will have a little more spice, but this was good none-the-less!

Gone for a week

I left town for a week and harvested this (plus four extremely large zucchini) when I returned. I think I am going to have to can salsa and pickles this weekend or else give some of it away.

Harvest 8/6/2010

Harvest 8/6/2010

Canned some stuff

I attempted to can some of the cucumbers and zucchini last weekend. I followed the instructions exactly, but am still leery. The top are still down, so that is a good sign. I guess we’ll see if I am still alive in a few weeks when I get to open one and give it a try. The blueberry jam was made from berries picked at a pick-your-own farm in Iowa City.

Grape Jelly and Dill Pickles

First attempt at canning.

Cucumbers and broccoli

Putting the cucumber plants behind (to the north of) the broccoli plants I think caused them to be a little delayed. The broccoli basically shaded the cucumbers until the broccoli plants were pulled out. Also, eight broccoli plants was probably too much, but I don’t know what a suitable early maturing replacement would be to get something out of the vacant spaces around the squash before they get too big.

What do I do with all this?

There are some vegetables where I have never ventured past the canned versions (like green beans). So having a pound of freshly picked ones forced me to find something to do with them. Obviously, I went to google to figure this out. This recipe was one of the first in the results and sounded good to me. Like it says, you can’t go wrong with bacon and potatoes. I substituted green onions for the red ones since I have so many, but otherwise made it exactly as shown. My wife and I both thought it was wonderful. I was especially excited because every vegetable in it was grown in my back yard. I paired it with grilled zucchini because, as everyone knows, one zucchini plant will produce enough to feed a small town, and I had plenty. I made grilled paprika chicken (also a spur-of-the-moment google find) that was also quite tasty. I liked it so much that will probably make this same meal again in the next few weeks.

This week

I’ve been harvesting something about every other day recently, most of which has been zucchini. I have been updating the Plan page with the yields as they come in, which so far are what I expected. The bean plants still look a little off, but I am harvesting something from them now so I think I will just take what I can get and not worry about it this year. The tomatoes look awesome, and I actually have peppers this year!

The broccoli and pea seeds I planted for the fall have already sprouted which makes me excited for what I might be able to get in the fall.

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First zucchini

The first of the year. I hadn’t checked the garden in a while since it has been raining for the past five days, and this guy was a surprise! It is a little small (about 4 inches), but I am sure there are many more to come. I noticed a few of the flowers have been cut off just below the base, and am wondering if a cutworm of sorts is the culprit. If I have time tonight, I will try to go out and investigate since I have read they are active in the evening (at least when it is dark). I noticed the same flower-sheer type thing with my potato plants as well.

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Winter planting plans

I scheduled some plantings for the fall, which can be seen on the calendar on the side of the (non-facebook) site. I will be planting broccoli, peas, romaine, spinach, and radishes. I was hoping to do a little more, but I waited too long to start anything else (cucumbers or more summer squash specifically).