imple Vegetarian | Gardeners' Holidays 2014: Squashmas

Squashmas this year is a slightly subdued celebration for us, because both our zucchini plants have fallen prey to the dreaded squash vine borer. These pests are particularly nasty because, by the time your plant starts to wilt, they're already inside and making their way up the stem, killing as they go. Last year we tried to stop the little buggers from infesting in the first place by wrapping the vines in foil, which would, in theory, keep the moths from laying their eggs at the base of the stem where the larvae can hatch and burrow their way in. That tactic quickly proved to be pointless, because (duh) zucchini plants aren't like butternut squash, which have just one big main stem; they branch out, forming dozens of individual stems, and there's no way you could possibly wrap every one of them without breaking off the leaves and damaging the plant. We also tried setting out yellow cups filled with water around the plants; these are supposed to attract the moths so that they fall in and drown. These had, as far as we can tell, no effect at all. So instead, we just watched the plants vigilantly for signs of damage, and as soon as we spotted the dreaded wilting and orange, sawdust-like debris, we performed surgery on the plants to extract the grubs. Result: our plants stayed healthy all summer long and produced a good 14 pounds of squash throughout the growing season.

Based on these results, we figured there was no point in bothering with prevention measures this year; we'd just watch the plants and perform surgery at the first sign of damage. Sadly, our efforts don't seem to have been quite as successful as they were last year. Maybe we didn't catch the problem early enough, or maybe we didn't manage to catch all the grubs, but the results were...ambiguous. The smaller of the two plants was heavily infested; Brian ended up pulling out the entire plant, then cutting off one the section that looked healthy, re-burying it, and hoping for the best. As you can see in this picture, the replanted vine doesn't look any too well; all its largest leaves have wilted and turned yellow, and at first glance, you might say the whole plant was dead or dying. Yet if you look closely, there is a small core of green, healthy-looking foliage right at the heart of the plant, and it's actually producing new blossoms and even one tiny squash. So I guess we'll have to wait and see. The plant may be done for, or it may have more fight left in it then we thought.

As for the bigger plant, it did no longer appear at the start blush to be as badly infested; Brian most effective dug grubs out of it earlier than lowering off the lifeless leaves and heaping dust over the stem. Yet it is not exactly thriving, either. Its outermost leaves are searching wilted, and a number of them have developed a kind of whitish, patchy discoloration. Gardening boards suggest that this might be powdery mould, this is unrelated to the borer damage, however similarly volatile to the plant. So I'll should exit there nowadays and decrease off all of the ones leaves in advance than the harm spreads an excessive amount of, after which perhaps deliver the leaves an wonderful spraying within the morning to maintain it from coming returned.

For the time being, however, we still have plenty of zucchini. I managed to get one good-sized one off the larger vine today, and added to the three others we already had in the fridge (one small, one large, and one absolute whopper), we definitely have more than enough to celebrate the annual zucchini-fest in style. In fact, we're likely to be scrambling to come up with ways to use it all up. All in all, this looks like a job for Barbara Kingsolver's Disappearing Zucchini Orzo, as presented in her fascinating book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It magically absorbs the contents of 3 large zucchini, plus an onion, into just 12 ounces of orzo, with just a bit of grated cheese and herbs added for flavor. (I'm considering leaving out the oregano, which I'm not that crazy about, and perhaps adding a touch of garlic, which I think improves just about anything.)

And for dessert? Well, earlier this week Brian made up a big batch of zucchini cakes. I'm now not nice in reality wherein I at the begin found the recipe, so I bet there can be no damage in only reproducing it and seeing if each person claims it:

Zucchini Brownies

2 c. Shredded zucchini

2 c. Flour

2 tsp. Vanilla

3 Tbsp. Cocoa

half c. Oil

half of tsp. Salt

1 half of of c. Sugar

1 1/2 tsp. Baking soda

1/2 c. Nuts (non-compulsory)

2 eggs

Grease and flour 9x13 pan. Mix as indexed. Bake 350 for 22-30 minutes. Can be doubled and fill cookie sheet. I constantly do ..

For frosting:

1/3 c. Milk

five Tbsp. Butter

1 c. Sugar

Boil for four minutes then upload 1 cup of chocolate chips. Brian made some changes to this: first, we decided to skip the frosting, while you keep in mind that what form of brownie goals it? He additionally doubled the amount of cocoa, considering three tablespoons too small an amount to chocolafy something. The zero.33 change turned into accidental: he used baking powder as opposed to baking soda, ensuing in a completed product that changed into very wet and masses extra like a cake than a brownie. Good, even though, and an wonderful manner to make one complete massive zucchini disappear. But subsequent time I expect I might be inclined to go together with this version from AllRecipes.Com, which complements the cocoa to half of cup and leaves out the eggs absolutely. It, too, requires frosting, however I assume if the recipe we made tasted nice without it, possibly this one will too.