Tuesday 15 January 2013

Zucchini Tuesday - only 2?

I feel like I should be up for mis-advertising, deceiving you on two fronts.  First - the title of my blog  is positively deceptive right now. When I started this blog last January, I was practically tripping over produce. I was up to my ears in beetroot, eggplant, lettuce, cucumber, beans, lemons, tomatoes, chillies and of course zucchinis, the house was covered in enormous bunches of bronze-coloured sunflowers and glut seemed an appropriate title for the blog.

One year later and with a move to the country where a patch needed to be started from scratch in mid-November, weeks of way above average heat, a small water tank, practically no rain and  - well, there ain't no glut of any sort.

Greenskin 2
It's a bad year when not even your zucchini is glutting - I have only picked two zucchini to date from Greenskin.  And here is where the second deception comes in... I started Zucchini Tuesday  thinking that I would at least have zucchini producing if nothing else and that as a result I was going to need to love  the zucchini very, very much! I was looking forward to getting very creative with the big Z making a wide range of meals with possibly the only garden produce. (I must say that I don't currently have a lot of zucchini love...)

A few weeks ago, when Greenskin was looking ok but the rest of the patch was looking pretty bad, I decided to put in another zucchini - I am calling it Greenskin 2. 

Mulched up to its neck with beautiful locally grown and nutritious lucerne (do zucchinis have necks?), it has spent its youth surviving the heat and has done extremely well.  Just take a look at this gorgeous beast! And little immature and unfertilised fruit ready to go! Maybe I will get more zucchini after all?

I have decided that they are tough bunnies - able to put up with a lot of maltreatment - they are much hardier than my lettuce and tomatoes which are basically stuffed!

How are your zucchinis? What are you mulching yours with? Are yours surviving the heat and producing?

I am truly envious of Liz's Zs and Jen's Zs, especially Jen's yellow ones. Take a look at their recent posts on their Zs, cause there ain't none here to show you!

Go Greenskin 2!


4 comments:

  1. Not wanting to rub my excesses zucchini in at all but I tried the zucchini with pine nuts and currants from the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden companion book last night - really good.

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  2. That is a triumph! I might have to go to the green grocers and buy some. the country is set to cool down a little bit now that the wet has started in the top end so hopefully things will start flowering again soon!

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  3. Well I feel successful to have picked my first zucchini last night! Not a glut either, but this new vege patch is certainly better than the other one. The plants look lush and healthy and are growing well. I have a few baby courgettes coming through, but only 3 or 4 that I can see so far. Some teeny tiny baby Lebanese cucumbers are there and the beans are growing. W mulched with pea straw-it's shooting in places but overall I'm beginning to feel as though things might grow for me sometimes!

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    Replies
    1. Yay! Success feels great doesn't it! Looking lush and healthy is great. Pea straw is fantastic, don't worry if it sprouts - it will add more nitrogen to the soil helping to feed your plants. My cucumbers are about the only thing that is going well so I am looking forward to posting again on them soon.

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