Veggie Spotlight: Zucchini

Farm Update

The drop-offs are in full swing these days!

Hi everyone!  The biggest news of the week for us was the big rainstorm we got on Thursday evening!  We so needed the rain, so getting so much of it caused some pretty unprecedented jubilation on my part.  (I may have gone outside and danced in it a little bit.  Okay, I did.)  Fred had some misgivings while the rain was coming down so hard, because when the rain is that intense, it runs the risk of washing out some recent plantings.  But closer inspection the next morning showed that most of the new plantings survived.  There was a planting of tricolor carrots that looks like it might be a wash, so to speak, but we're going to give it a week or so before we can tell for sure.  But I tell you what, all the other plants are looking so much happier!  The sweet corn and tomatoes are really coming along, and the bean plants are in bloom.  The deer are much less of a problem now as well.  We know they're still around because we can see their tracks, but they're nervous.  Now they just nibble a few things and move on, instead of taking out entire plantings of lettuce and beets.  We've even got a pretty decent handle on the weeds right now.  After such an intense second half of June, it has been really nice to slow down and take a breath, and we are so grateful to have come out of the woods now on the other side.

What to Expect in Your Share this Week

Here are the options in each veggie station this week!  If you have a half share, you'll choose one from each category, and if you have a full share, you'll choose two.

• Zucchini or basil
• Romaine or Little Gem lettuce
• Carrots
• Potatoes or broccoli
• Onions
• Cucumber, garlic, or kohlrabi
• Kale or cabbage

If you have your share delivered to your home or workplace, or if you pick up at our East Lansing drop-off, here are your options for this week.  If you have a half share, choose one, and if you have a full share, choose two.

Share A:                                      Share B:

Zucchini                                      Basil
Romaine                                      Romaine
Carrots                                        Carrots
Broccoli                                      Potatoes
Onions                                        Onions
Garlic                                          Cucumber
Kale                                            Cabbage

If you have a preference for share A or share B, just let me know by noonish the day before your delivery day, and I'll make sure you get your preferred share.  If you don't have a preference, I'll just choose for you. :-)

Veggie Spotlight: Zucchini

Not only do the zucchini plants produce a wonderful fruit, but
their edible blooms are also gorgeous!

Garrison Keillor once joked that August is the only time people actually lock their cars in the church parking lot, not for fear that something will be stolen, but because they are afraid someone will leave a big bag of zucchini on their seat.  Zucchini does have a reputation for being very prolific in late summer, and this year, we've been enjoying it quite a bit earlier than usual!  This year we started our zucchini in our new heated greenhouse, so it got a good head start even before the temperatures started to climb.  In fact, this year we've grown most of it indoors, either in our heated greenhouse or in our unheated hoophouses.  We find that this way, the plants are a lot healthier and the yield is better, and they produce a much better quality fruit.  It's also easier to harvest the blooms, which we sell to some of our higher-end restaurants.  This year we are growing both green and yellow zucchini, which we prefer over other summer squash because the vines are stronger and healthier, they tend to be more prolific, and they have nicer blooms.

The zucchini you get in your CSA shares start their life by being seeded in plastic flats in our greenhouse.  While the seeding itself is not hard, the tricky part is keeping small animal pests away.  Mice are particularly attracted to squash seeds of all kinds; it's pretty much their favorite kind.  Once the zucchini plants are successfully growing in their flats, we transplant them into both the heated greenhouse and the unheated hoophouses, spaced two feet apart, in black plastic.  This allows them enough space to grow to their full size, and the black plastic warms the soil underneath and keeps the weeds down.  We water them with our drip line irrigation, which is a small plastic hose with perforations that allows the water to drip out right along the base of the plant.  This ensures that the plant gets the water it needs without also watering any weeds that might be dormant nearby.  It also keeps the plant's foliage from getting wet, because wet foliage is much more susceptible to plant diseases.  Powdery mildew is the main disease enemy of the squash family, and keeping the foliage dry goes a long way in discouraging the growth of this prevalent disease.  Zucchini expend a lot of energy to produce so much fruit and so many blooms, so we apply fish fertilizer to help keep the plants healthy.

Zucchini are the immature fruit of the squash plant, which we pick every few days to keep them from getting too large, hard, and stringy.  You may have seen ginormous zucchini in your grandmother's garden that certainly look very impressive, but they are much more tender and delicious when they are smaller and younger.  In fact, the best way to tell if a zucchini is getting a little too ripe is to look at the skin.  If the skin is still pretty shiny, it is bound to be nice and tender, but if it has a dull, matte skin, it's probably not all that good inside.  We've found that our greenhouse zucchini gets larger while still maintaining its tenderness and flavor than its counterparts in the field.  They've been doing particularly well this year, so you'll probably be able to enjoy zucchini for many weeks to come.  We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Recipes

Zucchini is a very versatile veggie!  You can grill it, saute it, bake it into a bread, or even make noodles out of it!  Here are 26 great zucchini recipes in case you're looking to try something new.  I know I'll be trying out these Black Bean and Zucchini Quesadillas this week!