Holy Zucchini!

Since this spring was my first attempt at gardening, I have a lot to learn about the topic. I especially have a lot to learn about buying seeds. While my dad was making plans for, and getting help with building, four piles of dirt for his raised bed garden, my mind raced ahead to the fall - what vegetables and fruits would I want to have in my freezer to get me through the winter? I made a long list of the foods I wanted to grow, including (in no particular order):
corn, peas, green beans, onions, zucchini, butternut squash, pumpkin, tomatoes, carrots, celery (that idea bit the dust), basil, potatoes, beets, cucumbers, and spinach.

We went to a garden expo when there was still quite a chill in the air. (I have no idea what month that might have been.) My dad bought several Seed Savers seed packets, including a variety of watermelon that grows well in our short Wisconsin summers. Later, when the rows of dirt had been mixed with composted manure and topsoil and a little bit of sand, and I had been freezing, canning, and otherwise preserving in my head for weeks, I started throwing seed packets in the cart when we found ourselves in garden supply stores.

I was looking for two main qualities in my seeds - organic, or heirloom. Something about Barbara Kingsolver's mission to raise heritage turkeys who reproduce in the natural way inspired me to keep my foods to varieties that have been around for a long time, and haven't been meddled with. (Maybe Michael Pollan's discussion of the New Leaf potato in The Botany of Desire also had something to do with my two criteria.)

The incredibly warm spring made it hard to tell when a reasonable planing time would be (the last frost was a distant memory but the normal last frost date was still weeks in the future), but eventually dad and I gathered all of our seed packets and carefully read exactly how the seeds were supposed to be started, when they would germinate, what soil temperature they liked. We drew potential layouts for the garden, we researched companion planting, we made charts detailing the growing conditions for each seed, and eventually we actually started digging.

I had been reading the backs of these seed packets for days, learning the ins and outs of how to grow vegetables from seeds. Seed packets in hand, I walked out to the fourth bed of the garden, ready to plant peas. Only when I started to look at the peas that were about to be planted (we had three different packets) did it occur to me that I had overlooked a crucial element of seed selection. I did not pay enough attention to the variety of seeds I had purchased. I could almost quote the correct soil temperature, the days to germination, the height of the plant at maturity. But I didn't know a thing about the quality of the peas that would grow from these seeds. Last year my dad grew the most delicious peas I'd ever eaten. Did I shop for the same variety? Of course not. I'm not sure what I based my decision on, but I ended up three very different varieties of peas. All of them were good, but harvesting them was a little bit haphazard. One variety was for shelling, one was a snow pea variety, to be harvested before the peas inside matured, and one was a hybrid, with gorgeous peas inside, but also a very sweet edible pod. I'm not complaining about my choices - they were all very good - I'm just embarrassed that I overlooked some thing so crucial - food quality!

When I bought my zucchini seeds, I was looking for a variety that would produce a reasonable amount of produce. Plenty of authors have warned me about overzealous zucchini vines. The variety I bought (sorry I can't be specific - the seed packets are in my dad's garage, an hour away) said that the zucchini should be harvested when it is about one to six inches big. That sounded reasonable. If the zucchini is small when it is harvested, it can't overtake all of my kitchen counters, can it? But then, when I saw those ripe fruits hanging on the vine, I started asking questions. Six inches in length or diameter? It doesn't say. The first zucchini I picked, last Wednesday, were all at least an inch in diameter, and all were at least six inches long. I was eager to eat them. The tomatoes hang tantalizingly on the vine, green and hard, laughing at me because I can see how beautiful they are going to be, but they know I can't eat them yet. Wednesday's zucchini proved too tempting. They were the size of zucchini I have purchased at farmers markets and at the grocery store, so they must have been ready.

On Saturday I took another look at the zucchini. I knew I had more green beans to pick, so I put on my gloves (and bug spray because it was evening by this point and the mosquitoes were vicious) and waded in among the huge squash leaves. At first, I only saw small zucchinis. I picked some anyway, because I wasn't sure when I'd be back in Madison, and, at least this early in the season, they are SO GOOD! Also, many of the very small little squash on the vines were starting to get rotten, and I didn't want to wait for the ones I picked to grow, only to find out that they'd become brown slimy messes.

After I had a few mini zucchini in my basket, I saw a monster, hidden in the back of the row. I must have missed this guy on Wednesday. He fits in well with the giant kohlrabi that just kept growing . . .

That is a 3 lb zucchini and a 4 lb 6 oz kohlrabi! Also pictured: basil, green beans, turnips. (Why didn't I bring home a few more onions?)

I intended to do something with these vegetables on Saturday night, or Sunday at the latest, but it is Monday morning now and they're still sitting in my kitchen. I was too wrapped up reading blogs yesterday to worry about kitchen doings.

They're not getting any fresher. Zucchini bread, here you come.