Zucchini and Other Squash Recipies

We've got a huge amount of zucchini and other squash coming in this year. Here are some ideas I am collecting for what do with it all.

Zucchini and squash pickles

Zucchini bread (I freeze grated zucchini to use over the winter)

Vegetable pizza

Greek Style Zucchini Fritters

Grilled Zucchini

Grilled Zucchini (Foil Pack)

Simple Greenhouse - 1/2 inch EMT and fence wire

Here is my simple greenhouse. The frame doubles as a trellis for cucumbers and other climbers.
(here is a link to a picture of the frame by itself)


The door can be propped open half or all the way when the sun is out...

A look inside....


The frame is made from four pieces of 1.5 EMT and 5' wire fence. Each frame is 5' long which is convenient since EMT is available in 10' sticks. The plastic is 10' wide, cut into a perfect square. I used 3 grommets along each side, and use mini bungees to hold the cover to the frame. If it gets really cold, I use a 100 watt light bulb in a spun metal fixture as a heater.

Second Planting - April 23

Planted Romas and Big Boys in row 2. 10-10-10 with horse manure.

Dixie Hybrid yellow squash, and summer's bounty zucchini in row 3.

First planting - 2011

Planted 20 tomato plants yesterday (April 17) - 14 better boys and 6 big boys.
Row 1, Numbers 1-14 are better boys (except #5) 15-20 are big boys.
Using 1/2 cup or so of 10-10-10 with peat moss. Using bucket ring, with side trench.

2011 Planting List

Started on Feb 20, 2011
Bell peppers

• Big Dipper
• Crispy HB

Started on March 5, 2011
Peppers

• Serrano Chili
• Anaheim Chili
• Tam Jalapeno

Squash

• Dixie Hybrid (yellow crookneck)
• Black Beauty (zucchini)

Melons

• Jubilee (watermelon)
• Sierra Gold (cantaloupe)
• Hale's Best (cantaloupe)
• Ambrosia (cantaloupe, from last years' seed)
  

Eggplant

• Black Beauty

Cucumber

• Marketmore 76
• Burpee Hybrid II
• Burp Free
• Pickalot Hybrid

Tomatoes

• Cherry - Supersweet 100 VF, Hybrid
• Grape - Juliet Hybrid
• Better Boy Hybrid
• Big Boy Hybrid
• Roma VF
  

Seed Catalogs

Best all around cucumber: Delikatesse from rareseeds.com (aka “Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds”) http://rareseeds.com/vegetablesa-c/cucumber/delikatesse-cucumber.html

Other Seed Catalogs:

Main street Seed and Supply

http://companionplants.com/

http://www.southernexposure.com/

http://www.sheffields.com/

http://seedrack.com/ (aka Whatcom Seed Company)

Fall Crop Ideas

Here is a reminder of what to plant next fall.

Semi-Hardy Vegetables	Hardy Vegetables
(tolerates light frost)	(tolerates hard frost)
Beets	Broccoli
Carrot	Brussels Sprouts
Cauliflower	Cabbage
Celery	Collards
Chard	Kale
Chinese Cabbage	Kohlrabi
Endive	Mustard Greens
Lettuce	Onion
Parsnip	Parsley
Potato	Peas
Salsify	Radish
	Spinach
	Turnip

Amaranthus Spinosus

I think I have a positive ID on one of the most productive weeds in the garden: Amaranthus Spinosus. It matures to have a red stalk, has sharp thorns, and produces an abundance of seeds. Some people at the gardens call it "pigweed." All I know is that it is hard to kill.

Cover Crop

We have planted a cover crop of Medium Red Clover ( 3 lbs at $3.72 per lb from Main Street Seed and Supply). Put seeds in the ground in 10/16/2010. We also planted 2 packages each ($1.95) of Dwarf Siberian Kale, Harris Early Parsnips and 2 packages of Sevin Top Turnips (also $1.95). October 16 was a little late, but we got in two weeks of good watering before the 11/1 deadline of our community gardens. Only one other person has put in a cover crop, and they are growing a grass type (Rye or winter wheat).

Decided on Medium Red Clover after reading about it in "Managing Cover Crops Profitably."

Weather Summary - May

Using Wolfram Alpha, Query "rainfall last month Germantown"

Update - May 31

Here is the first harvest. A couple of days later we had twice this much.

We had to take one tomato plant out. It seemed to have some type of wilt.

I moved all of the Sumpter cucumbers to one side of one tent. I have planted more Sumpter seeds in hopes that they will do better in the warmer weather. Also, I will plant them closer in towards the plastic where the ground stays a little more moist.

Here is the first watermelon beginning to form. It is a Sugar Baby.

This is the sugar baby bed.


These are Ambrosia cantaloupe. The ones in the box are doing better than the climbing vines.


Here are the climbing Ambrosia cantaloupe.


Still haven't figured out how to grow any type of bean. We are trying the brute force method in another row, planting seeds by the hundred.


The weeds were out of control in the boxes where we planted seeds. We cleaned up the butternut (Waltham) squash bed and added mulch from the Compostumbler.



Sweet potatoes (Beauregard). We also replanted one of the beds with these.


These are Jelly Bean grape tomatoes. I needed to do a better job of tying these up.


Squash, zucchini, eggplant and peppers. The squash and zucchini are really producing well.


Tomatoes are looking good.

Morning Weeding

I stopped by the garden on the way to work to hoe a few weeds today. The weather was really nice. I am still battling the potato beetles on the eggplant, A couple of raised beds where I planted the carrots, beets, and radishes are weedy. Most everything else looks good, though.

Pepper plants finally started looking better. The zucchini and crookneck squash are producing, almost ready to start harvesting them.

Almost all of the tomatoes (84 days) are looking good. I need to add mulch to some of them. Several have golf ball sized fruit on them.

I staked the cherry tomato plants last night.

The sweet potatoes are looking fine. Some are starting to spread.

Cantaloupe.

Cross country hybrid cukes are starting to climb. I am not having much luck with "sumpter."

Jubilee watermelons are starting to spread.

77 Days - First Tomato

I spotted the first tomato forming today. The cross country hybrid cucumbers also have fruit forming on them. The composted leaf mulch is doing a great job keeping the weeds down. I spotted some Colorado potato beetle larvae today. Gave the eggplant, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, and cucumbers another shot of Sevin spray.

Added Composted Leaf Mulch

The dirt in the tomato buckets had settled a little bit, so we added a mixture of peat moss, dirt and milorganite to top off the buckets. On top of this we added some composted leaves. We also added mulch to most of the squash and pepper plants.




These are the cherry tomatoes...


We also mulched the sweet potatoes...

Mulch on the pepper plants and the squash

We also added black plastic under the "tents"...

... and between the melon boxes.

Pests - Striped Cucumber Beetle

Here is one more pest I have found in the garden -- the striped cucumber beetle. I think the sevin has worked on these guys, the ones I found today were dead or seemed slow moving. I read today that I need to check for eggs under the base of the leaves. I will be doing that next time out.

Also today I found more Colorado potato beetle eggs on the eggplant and on the bell pepper plants. I did not see any more beetles.

(image: Wikipedia.org)

Tennessee Flooding

Tennessee has had a lot of rain over the past weekend. Near our garden the Wolf River has risen out of its banks. Some of the plots at our community garden are completely underwater. Hopefully it will start receding soon.

At least we didn't get it as bad as Nashville:

Compost Tube

Here is another composting idea, brought to you by the community garden at the University of Memphis (the TIGUrS Garden). They are using plastic corrugated pipe with baffles bolted inside it as a medium-scale composter. A few months ago I was checking prices on this pipe, and it is actually VERY expensive. I like the idea of continuous composting, though.



Here is some of the above compost in action (with a generous amount of cotton burr compost mixed in).



Here is their cucumber trellis. Since I work nearby, I sometimes walk over and check on the progress. It is nice to get into a garden in the middle of the work day.

Weather Summary - April

If you haven't found Wolfram Alpha (wolframalpha.com), you might be missing out on the greatest thing since the calculator. I use it a lot for the weather report - just type "your city weather" and you will get a lot of info. I also use the query "rainfall last month Germantown" to get precipitation history.

Pests - Spotted Cucumber Beetle

wikipedia.org
Here is another unwelcome visitor to the garden -- the spotted cucumber beetle. It looks a lot like an elongated yellow lady bug with black spots. Hopefully I am starting early enough with the sevin to prevent a lot of damage.

Pests - Colorado Potato Beetle

One of these pretty little fellows (and his dozens of friends) have set up housekeeping among my eggplants. I killed as many as I could find. I also removed the leaves where they had laid their eggs (yellowish-orange). You have to look under the leaves to find them. I also found a few on my tomato plants. I used sevin spray on the eggplants and sevin dust on the rest of the plants.