Zucchini Soup

Zucchini

The Clarimore and Raven Zucchini have now started their relentless march across the culinary landscape.  Cindy's artificial pollination efforts are now bearing fruit--lots of fruit.

Something she made recently was a cold Herbed Zucchini Soup from an Eating Well Magazine recipe that was really delicious.  In addition to 1 and 1/2 pounds of zucchini, the recipe calls for 3/4 cup of shredded Cheddar cheese, and that ingredient was what made the soup so delicious.

For the recipe, go to Eating Well Magazine at: http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/herbed_zucchini_soup.html_0 .

DOMA Falls! Our Squash Think It Applies To Them!

Squash Blossoms

Today the Supreme Court of the United States issued decisions striking down the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and upholding the decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which overturned the discriminatory change to the California state constitution that prohibited same-sex marriage in California.

It's been a long, hard road to get to this point and the journey is not over yet, because the decision did not go so far as to recognize marriage as a fundamental right for same-sex couples, but it's a significant and welcome milestone on that journey.

So what does this have to do with the garden, you ask?

Well, we're not quite sure why, but both our Delicata Squash and our Clarimore Zucchini have been out of synch this year.  Each squash blossom lasts only about a day, and during the time the flowers are open pollen must be transferred from the male flowers to the female flowers or else the fruit will not set on.

Bees and other pollinators usually do this, but in the past Cindy has assisted them by transferring pollen from one to the other with her paintbrush.  That works if the flowers are both open at the same time.

The problem this year is that both the zucchini and the squash plants, which are in two different raised beds, will have several male flowers open at the same time, or several female flowers, but not one of each.  Cindy tried to refrigerate one of the male squash flowers a couple of weeks ago and use the pollen from it when the next female flower opened, but that experiment didn't work out.

Cindy and I are celebrating the fall of DOMA; we just wish the squash weren't celebrating it, too.

Sex In The Garden

Female Zucchini Flower

O.K., I know what you're thinking, but it's the Clarimore Zucchini and the Persian Cucumbers.

Cindy noticed the other day that the honey bees all seemed to have congregated on the lavenders in the butterfly garden in the front yard, while the zucchini and cucumber blossoms in the vegetable beds in the back were untouched.  Since the blossoms only last a short time, it's essential that pollen be transferred from the male blossoms to the female ones.  If the bees don't get it done, somebody else (that would be us) has to make sure it happens, so she raided my paintbrush collection and got the pollen transferred.

Male Zucchini Flower

Of course, I had to ask, "how can you tell which is which?"  And, of course, it boils down to the long, narrow stamen of the male and the round pistil of the female blossom.

I guess, after all these years of reading the bawdy bits of Shakespeare's plays, I should have expected it would be something like that.

If the number of blossoms is any gauge, we should have a bumper crop of zucchini again this year.  It's a good thing we like them so much.  Cindy should be able to try another zucchini cream pie.  Yum!

Grow What You Eat

Winter, even the very mild San Diego winter, is traditionally a time for all good gardeners to dream about what they're going to plant in the Spring.  The Christmas catalogue avalanche has now been succeeded by a tidal wave of gardening catalogues, each with its own set of temptations.

One thing we've been trying to do the last couple of years is to grow more of the food we eat.  We can't become complete locavores because Cindy is not prepared to go without coffee in the morning and I won't give up chocolate.  Ever.  Period.

But we can grow a lot of the vegetables we eat.  We've already been doing that, but with the two new raised beds coming into full production this year, we should be able to do even better.

Right now we're eating the beets (Detroit Reds) that are still coming out of the garden, as well as some of the endless Clarimore zucchini and tomatoes from the summer garden.

Ancestry.com quotes Mark Twain as saying, "Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."  But next week we'll still be poring over seed catalogues and Cindy will be double-digging the new raised beds.

In Praise of Clarimore Zucchini

Cindy came in this morning from the garden with her hands full of tomatoes and zucchini. The tomatoes finally are taking off in the suddenly hot weather. The San Diego June Gloom stretched well into July and August this year, with temperatures in the upper sixties or low seventies; the tomatoes did their best, but it was clear they were struggling. But now that it's in the upper eighties and mid-nineties, the humans are melting and the tomatoes are saying "Finally! It's about time."

She also brought in a couple of zucchini. One of them had managed to avoid detection until it had grown to monstrous proportions--it weighed in at three pounds, but the other one was a more reasonable size.

These are both Clarimore Zucchini. They have a pale green skin, lightly speckled. Unlike the zucchini you buy in the grocery stores, the skin of Clarimores is tender and not bitter. They saute nicely and Cindy has used them several times to make a cold zucchini soup, although the three pound monster would probably make enough to last us all through fall and winter.