we have shredded them and frozen . . . and to tie into another thread, I suppose one could stick a zuke up a cooch as a hedge against starvation.

there's a lady in Scotland who might have some storage space

we have shredded them and frozen

How do they come out after they are frozen and thawed? I never tried this because I thought they would be extremely mooshy and I'm not a fan of mooshy vegitables.

and to tie into another thread, I suppose one could stick a zuke up a cooch as a hedge against starvation.

I failed to go to the garden for 3-4 days. I ended up with a couple that may be perfect. I'm not sure I can do anything with them except use them as chocks to stop semi's or chop them up and make 8000 loaves of bread with them.

~Matt

Get some chickens and feed the zukes to them.

In June we had two weeks of rain, about 8 ninches total. My entire garden is a loss, except for the zucchini and yellow crook neck squash. So now apparently my spaghetti, chili, and salsa will all be squash based since I have no tomatoes.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

that reminds me . . . in summer we make lasagna using zukes sliced thin as a substitute for the pasta . . .

My entire garden is a loss, except for the zucchini and yellow crook neck squash.

I consider zucchini the poison ivy of the vegetable world. I've only seen a couple things that will kill it, Round up and a few select bugs.

Sorry to here about the garden. Been very wet here as well and had quite a few slugs and other wet bug problems. I've only had to water maybe a half dozen times all year. Only thing that didn't grow was cucumbers. They were beaten up pretty badly by slugs but seem to be coming back.


~Matt

If you shred & freeze, let it thaw, drain the liquid & then you can add it to sauce (or in my case, make chocolate zucchini cake).

Zucchini relish - I think the recipe I used was from allrecipes, but I used waaaayyy less sugar than it called for. It was delicious.

Check & see if your local food bank accepts fresh produce. I know that my mom harvests & drops off lots of stuff for them throughout the summer.

that reminds me . . . in summer we make lasagna using zukes sliced thin as a substitute for the pasta .

My wife made zucchini crisp, like apple crisp, which isn't to bad. Not a huge fan of it but she likes it. She would probably love it in lasagna.

~Matt

So many people thinking the exact same thing.

Check & see if your local food bank accepts fresh produce. I know that my mom harvests & drops off lots of stuff for them throughout the summer.

That's a great idea as well. I plant similar amounts of everything every year and some years you get a ton of something and other years nothing. One year I harvested 30 gallons of cucumbers and canned and pickled them. Two weeks later I had another large construction bag full and basically gave them all away, many just went to waste or back into the garden. This year I'll be lucky to get enough pickles to can, planted the same amount.

~Matt

This. For a few years I had very large zucchini growing and gave about 95% away to friends and the homeless shelter. For months we get crates of donated fruits and vegetables that are well used. They go into soups, salads and main dishes giving much needed nutrients to those loving on the streets. I planted various squash along with other vegetables a few months ago but have yet to see anything grow in a timely manner. The leftover watermelon has overtaken the yard, blocking the sun and adding weight to the good stuff. Luckily there are five or six watermelons growing instead of a bunch of vines.

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DISH is how we do it.

Your cucumbers didn't do well? I plant one cucumber every year, and it usually produces like crazy. I'm having the same zucchini overabundance...

Various peppers have done well this year, and the totatoes are looking good- should get some this weekend. The onions did really well too.

I have to expand and rearrange the garden beds again- all the squash type vegetables overrun everything else. The need their own widely spaced area.

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If I don't, who will? -Me
It's like being bipolar in opinion is a requirement around here. -TripleThreat

My wife makes this dish in the summer:

frying pan with a little melted butter
layer of squash
layer of fresh sliced tomatoes
layer of onion
salt, pepper and a little dill
cook to desired texture
top with favorite cheese
serve over brown rice
if you are me, add a little siracha on top

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I'll be what I am
A solitary man

That sounds really good.

Some friends had a ton of cucumbers and made cuctini's. Mix in a blender and add liquor.

We have a bunch of pumpkins that grew out of last years dump pile that are just about ready to pick. They don't look as plentiful as last year but we just started eating zucchini and squash this week. The tomato's are just about ready to start picking.

It has been interesting to see that year to year is so different and there is so much to learn. We found out that when the squash starts growing and then starts shriveling up before completion the problem is a problem with pollination. I never knew of such a thing as a male flower or a female flower, let alone pollinating by hand.

Your cucumbers didn't do well?

Well the early vine plantings are not doing well at all. They were hit really hard by I believe slugs of some sort. We had a really wet spring. Some were simply eaten entirely by them and their growth was severely stumped. A later planting of bush cucumbers seems to be doing well.

Various peppers have done well this year

Lots of peppers this year. I've done Jalepeno poppers on the grill and used a couple of my Beaver Dam peppers to make stuffed pablano style peppers on the grill. My mother in law is a lot of help too. She made a bunch of stuffed green peppers and we froze them. I want to try and pickle some of my pepperoni and Jalepeno.

Tomatoes are going crazy and have gotten so big a couple rows knocked over the supports I put up for them. A few are just starting to turn and then it will be time to make sauces, salsa's etc.

I have to expand and rearrange the garden beds again- all the squash type vegetables overrun everything else. The need their own widely spaced area.

Exactly what I did. I have one garden for all the vine stuff. In it I have the pumpkins, mellons, squashes, cucumbers and sweet potatoes. I even attempt, and fail every year, to keep the pumpkins away from the melons as the pumpkins tower over the mellon and sometimes drown them out. Once the pumpkins start growing I swear they grow a foot a day. Don't go down to the garden for a couple days and they have invaded the mellons and set down roots.

Something I've wanted to try was to grow corn and cucumbers together allowing the cucumbers to grow up the corn as a trellis. Problem is the dam raccoons keep destroying my corn :-)

~Matt

First year garden and we already have 5-6 zucchini. I think we are going to have overabundence issues too.

Farmer once told us to shed it and freeze it, it stores very well.

Also, zucchini bread stores well too. I have a co-worker who had about 40 frozen zucchini bread in her deep freezer, lasted her the whole winter. I think we plan on doing the same thing.

Try using grey water. I had an abundance of pests on my crop years ago and decided to try grey water because it was available and cheaper. It comes from the dishes and laundry and I use mostly bio-degradable detergents. Since using the grey water, the only pests are the birds that peck at the tomatoes, leaving room for the bugs to crawl through.

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DISH is how we do it.

Ha! I am learning this as well. My squash took over 1/2 the garden. My garden is protected with chicken wire to prevent rabbits. The vines went through the wire and now I have spagetti squash outside of my garden area into my grass (about softball size).

It has been interesting to see that year to year is so different and there is so much to learn. We found out that when the squash starts growing and then starts shriveling up before completion the problem is a problem with pollination. I never knew of such a thing as a male flower or a female flower, let alone pollinating by hand.

So you're giving handjobs to zucchinis?

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If I don't, who will? -Me
It's like being bipolar in opinion is a requirement around here. -TripleThreat

It has been interesting to see that year to year is so different and there is so much to learn.

I think this is extremely intriguing aspect of gardening to me. I've been doing this fairly seriously for 4-5 years now. By serious I don't mean for a living or that I'm an expert by any means but that we have a sizeable area, ~7K sq ft. The main reason it is this size is because the fun part for me is to grow things you can't get in the store.

What I've noticed over the years is that from year to year one variety of plant will do better then another and it may switch the next year. This year there was an interesting difference even in between the same basic varieties. I typically grow all my plants from seeds. This year however I ended up a few short with Roma tomotaes. The Roma's I grew from seed are doing very well while the Roma's I purchased from a green house are very stunted. Interestingly enough my Mother in law also bough a few Roma's, from a different green house, and hers are also not doing well. My guess is that the seeds I used are different enough that they are immune to some factor that the greenhouse variety is not.

We found out that when the squash starts growing and then starts shriveling up before completion the problem is a problem with pollination. I never knew of such a thing as a male flower or a female flower, let alone pollinating by hand.

First year I tried to grow "Mammouth Pumpkins" I had this problem. For some reason they simply were not getting pollinated and I had to hand pollinate them. My wife made fun of me for "Making it" with my pumpking plants. Since then I have started raising bees and haven't had the problem since. They are crushing all the cucumbers, melons and pumpkins right now.

Agreed TONS to learn and on some levels I'm shocked at how much as a society we don't know that was "Common knowledge", 100 years ago.

I went out and got a couple loads of compost from a company that collects all the yard waste in the area....uhhhh, WOW!. I highly recommend looking into it if you think your soil is lacking in the area of organic matter. I used it at the base of plants in rows to help keep the weeds down and tilled it into the soil in another area. Have never seen the plants so green and grow so much. We've had great weather this year to. A little to cool for some things but decent and consistent rains.

~Matt

Easy, make Zucchini bread.

http://allrecipes.com/...moms-zucchini-bread/

I did the same with chicken wire on 2 4x8 raised beds. I planted yellow squash, acorn squash, and zucchini next to each other. Its an explosion of gigantic leaves.

Luttuce and spinich did well too.

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If I don't, who will? -Me
It's like being bipolar in opinion is a requirement around here. -TripleThreat

Try using grey water.

I actually use soapy water in a spray form for several different bugs, Japanese beetles in specific. I did not try this on the cucumbers because I could find no evidence of bugs. That is why I suspect slugs or a disesease. Slugs come out at night, eat, then disappear. Have to get out really early to see them. Not sure spraying the plants would keep them off or not. If I have the problem again I will definately try it. At the moment however the plants are outgrowing the damage so it's getting better.

~Matt