Zucchini bragging rights

[ChrisGreaves]

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Two views taken lazily from my Muskoka chair three days ago.
The paler leaves, showing behind the shovel, and dead-centre of the photo, are squash plants trying to escape the shade. When they creep through my back fence I have promised home-delivery to Hubert and Linda.
Blackcurrant canes are struggling to prove a point just outside the bedroom window.

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A stitched view from the bedroom window. This view greets me each morning.
In the foreground are the tops of the five clumps of blackcurrant canes,
To the left a patch of beetroot which is outstripping the slugs and a half-dozen cherry tomatoes which are not.
I made radish-relish this morning. (Hot-dogs for supper tonight over my camp-fire barbecue).
Then the zucchini hedge. Hence the need to practice making relish with radishes before the zucchini ripens.

I confess to having my spirits lifted by this weed-like growth. Each day after the snow has melted, I lament the fact that "nothing has come up".
Then this happens.
I don't particularly like zucchini , but what can I do?

Cheers
Chris

[Argus]

I don't particularly like zucchini , but what can I do?

A bit late in the season to change ...

I confess to having my spirits lifted by this weed-like growth. Each day after the snow has melted, I lament the fact that "nothing has come up".
Then this happens.
I don't particularly like zucchini , but what can I do?

Eat and smile?

I made radish-relish this morning. (Hot-dogs for supper tonight over my camp-fire barbecue).
Then the zucchini hedge. Hence the need to practice making relish with radishes before the zucchini ripens.

I confess to having my spirits lifted by this weed-like growth. Each day after the snow has melted, I lament the fact that "nothing has come up".
Then this happens.
I don't particularly like zucchini , but what can I do?

So, no relish for zucchini?

A thumb-up for anything that thrives there (including Chris)!

[aekyall]

I don't particularly like zucchini , but what can I do?

Well, you could call them courgettes instead. Perhaps they would taste better then?

[GeoffW]

I had one extremely productive zucchini plant last summer.
So - zucchini pickles, zucchini chocolate cake (nice and moist), zucchini quiche, zucchini and ginger jam, zucchini lasagna (where zucchini takes the place of pasta), savoury zucchini muffins, zucchini brownies, and zucchini crumble (like apple crumble, and tastes very similar).

[GeoffW]

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There was a series of about six strips in this cartoon on zucchini - search zucchini foxtrot.

[John Gray]

Sings: "I dream of zucchini with the light-brown hair..."

[ChrisGreaves]

A bit late in the season to change ...

... but never too late to compost ...

So, no relish for zucchini?

More zucchini recipes on the web than there are zucchinis on my vine, according to Google⁽¹⁾, trouble is I had no ripe zucchini with which to experiment, and I am too cheap to spend cash on zucchini or cucumber down to Swyers, what with the post-covid crisis prisis.

Since the slugs were eating my radishes faster than could I, it had to be radish relish. Probably going to taste better than zucchini relish, assuming the snails don't develop an appetite for zucchini once the radishes (and I) are exhausted.
(thinks: Anyone relish Snail Relish?)

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Three and a half jars of radish relish.

A thumb-up for anything that thrives there (including Chris)!

Now with this I heartily concur. Next spring in go the squash and zucchini again, and a packet of cucumber seeds.

Cheers
Chris

⁽¹⁾ 112,000,000 results (0.63 seconds)

[ChrisGreaves]

Sings: "I dream of zucchini with the light-brown hair..."

Chair, John, "light brown CHAIR".

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Best Wishes!
Chris

[BobH]

Christopher! I am much impressed though I think you have been having us on about living in the GWN. How could such things have grown under the snow and how could the snow have melted in one day to allow you to photograph them before once again being covered by 3 feet (ok a meter) of snow tomorrow?

Did the fish things run this year?

[ChrisGreaves]

Christopher! I am much impressed though I think you have been having us on about living in the GWN. How could such things have grown under the snow and how could the snow have melted in one day to allow you to photograph them before once again being covered by 3 feet (ok a meter) of snow tomorrow?

Well, Bob, Ken isn't the only brilliant photographer on this board ...

This, my second spring, was no different from my first. Snow several feet high for months, without melting, and then two months of wondering why nothing "came up", then, in mid-July, the days already growing shorter, nature says "Oh, right, forgot about Bonavista!", and out troop all the nasturtiums (well, 90% of them), and one tries a single blossom, reports back, and they all come out. Then the married women stop by and compliment me on the geraniums, daffodils, crocuses etc and I wonder what flowers I should plant next year to attract the un-married women!

The zucchini and squash I grew in seed trays, made them myself, much too large, wood too thick, and almost too heavy for me to lift in and out each evening and morning. (This fall I shall make smaller-area trays from thinner wood). The seed trays work, although my tomatoes aren't doing too well.
I grew tired early on and mixed radish, pepper, and two other types of seed and sprinkled the mixture into a trench. The radishes came up in clumps of a dozen each and seem to have dissuaded the others from bothering at all.

The zucchini look so successful because of their elephant-ear leaves and golden trumpet blossoms up to ten inches across. Also Green and Gold being Australia's national colours.

Did the fish things run this year?

The Capelin? Yes. The local lads (including my neighbour ) keep a close watch, for the Capelin are followed by the squid and the cod etc., and they are pursued by the local lads (including my neighbour) who round up as many trippers as they can to "go fishing". There is a limit of five fish (which here means 'Cod" and not the other rubbish) per person in the boat, hence the call for volunteers, and the name of the game is to beat the fisheries inspector and yank in as many hungry fish as you can (a policy endorsed by my neighbour), and scoot home without being caught. There follows a frenetic period of skinning and filleting in which 80% of the fish is discarded - a two-foot Cod will provide two 18-inch fillets and one tongue - the remainder being tossed into a bin and quickly dumped on the rubbish tip fifteen minutes drive down #235. Most everyone (including my neighbour) ends up with a chest freezer full of frozen Cod fillets and no-one to give it to.

Except me. This summer four different neighbours have pressed so much frozen fish ("Cod") on me so that my freezer is full, and I have no room for the guy who brought me five pounds of frozen partridge-berries last year.

I trundled two wheel-barrows of discarded fish flesh across the street this year. One barrow received a hasty burial, topped with grass clippings and sawdust and soil; but the other yielded five pounds of useful flesh, half of which I have boiled and turned into "fish paste" and "fish stock".

No-one seems to want fish paste or fish-stock ...

Cheers
Chris

[kdock]

I don't particularly like zucchini , but what can I do?

Zucchini. Can't live with it, can't kill it with Roundup.

[GeoffW]

Here's a way of combining several of your hobbies - growing veggies, cooking and processing fish:
Homemade fish emulsion fertilizer

[ChrisGreaves]

Here's a way of combining several of your hobbies - growing veggies, cooking and processing fish: Homemade fish emulsion fertilizer

"A fresh emulsion fertilizer mixture can be easily made from one-part fresh fish, three-parts sawdust, and one bottle of unsulfured molasses."
No good to me:-
(1) doesn't involve zucchini and
(2) consumes molasses which, in Bonavista, is an essential in all cooking tasks and, for all I know, removal of skin tags.
Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Zucchini. Can't live with it, can't kill it with Roundup.

Good thought. Do you suppose chunks of dead cod head might do the trick?
Cheers
chris

[BobH]

Does no one dry cod fish? I should think that to be a better storage method but the freezers are probably only needed for a week or 2 before the sub-zero temps arrive again and allow outside storage without consuming electricity.

I really am most impressed with your garden. Alas, I cannot recommend what flowers might attract unmarried women as I have been wed for nigh on 60 years meself.

[ChrisGreaves]

Does no one dry cod fish?

Hi Bob.

Try this page and scroll right to the end "Sunday, October 14, 2018".

I should think that to be a better storage method but the freezers are probably only needed for a week or 2 before the sub-zero temps arrive again and allow outside storage without consuming electricity.

Most people here seem to be happy living off the post-1992 welfare teat. There are bragging rights for how high your electricity bill is, and if you don't win you can always add " ... but of course there's the propane bill, too".

As far as I know I am the only person here to hang clothes out to dry mid-winter, the old sublimation trick.
But even then, I use a line in the shed, because I don't want the neighbours to laugh at me.

I really am most impressed with your garden. Alas, I cannot recommend what flowers might attract unmarried women ...

There! And
I thought you were my friend

Cheers
Chris

[PJ_in_FL]

Chris,

I think you should celebrate your success by taking a moment to sit in that nice chair, pop the top off a beer, have a few swigs, then pour the rest into your favorite DIY slug trap for the slugs to enjoy. Be sure it will hold enough beer for the entire troupe to party.

Your radishes and tomatoes will cheer.


P.S. - Be sure to sprinkle coffee grounds around the perimeter of your garden to keep the neighborhood slugs from joining the party.

[kdock]

Good thought. Do you suppose chunks of dead cod head might do the trick?
Cheers
chris

Dunno. I'm not certain what herbicidal effect dead cod head chunks would have on Zucchini. If they do have such an effect, then it would depend on how fragrant the dead cod head chunks are, and/or in which direction the wind is blowing.
Kim

[ChrisGreaves]

I'm not certain what herbicidal effect dead cod head chunks would have on Zucchini.

Well, left-over fish stock that has been used to boil Russet Potatoes doesn't seem to do much harm.
Cheers
Chris

[kdock]

They look beautiful, Chris! Have you been able to harvest any blossoms after your pollinators have knocked off for the day? The blossoms on my squash plants have been done in by the excessive amount of rain we've been getting this Summer. The blossom in your photo looks luscious.

Kim