Cutting your Zucchini

Zucchini is prolific in a garden even if you only have three plants like I do.  We grew ours from seed.  Placed thee seeds in a hill and thinned them to one plant in each hill.  However, they still grew large and spread into the path and are covered with blossoms and fruits.  We have about 5 so far and I am looking forward to using them.  I will share recipes and experiments as time goes on.

How you use your zucchini sometimes requires different treatment and I thought I would start with how to cut your zucchini first, then move into recipes later.

The first technique is to dice the zucchini

 If you are going to make soups or stews this is the perfect bite size.

Shredding your zucchini with a box grater or food processor

This technique creates threads you can use in slaws, lasagna, omelets,
add to ground meat in your meatloaf, or to make breads. If you want to make sure your finished product is not water, sprinkle the zucchini with
salt to draw out the excess moisture then rinse and pat dry before
adding to slaws and other similar dishes.









You can slice your zucchini crosswize to create disks.

These shapes are great in stir fry, casseroles, any scalloped dish,  or a meat and veggie saute.  You can also slice on the diagonal to get a more oval shape.This is the shape I use for my Zucchini sweet pickles, but I cut them rather thin.

If you want to grill, cut 1/2 inch thick planks.

This is a great way to use the really large zucchini you get later in the season.

Sticks of zucchini

These 1/2 inch by 3/4 inch sticks or spears are great if you are making pickles, or veggie fries.  This is also a sturdy shape for deep frying.

If you have a mandoline you can cut your zucchini in Julienne strips.

This is great in salads raw or steamed and used in or as a side dish.  This is also a great way to reduce the tough tooth feel of an older more mature zucchini so you can use it in a stir fry or saute.

A potato peeler can let you shave off ribbons of zucchini.

This will help avoid the seedy center in larger fruits.  You can then take these thin pieces and marinade them in lemon juice and olive oil to make a vegetarian carpaccio or steam them to craft a zucchini fettuccine.

Carpaccio is a rare beef dish that uses thin slices of meat served over arugula and spinach with shaved parmesean cheese.  You can simply substitute the the zucchini for the beef and drizzle lemon juice and olive oil over it all and sprinkle with fresh pepper and serve. Or you can use your favorite vinaigrette.

Weekly update -- August 24

On August 21 we had two days (24 to 48 hours) of rain. Here is a map of the rainfall totals as of 7 Am on the 22nd. We are in the purple area near the top of the map with 2.51 inches of rain average, but in Elmhurst it was amazing the amount of rain that came from several different storms.

Courtesy of NOAA.gov

A press release from the City of Elmhurst stated this:

The City of Elmhurst experienced a significant rain event beginning Thursday, Aug. 21, and
continuing through the overnight hours into Friday, Aug. 22. Real-time data from the United States Geological Survey reveals several heavy bursts; 0.31 inches in 10 minutes just before midnight; 1.19 inches in approximately 30 minutes just after midnight; 0.26 inches in 10 minutes at 1:15 a.m.; and .42 inches in 20 minutes at approximately 2 a.m.

A total of 4 inches of rain fell in northern Elmhrust, where the garden is (only 2 inches down were I live.)

The roads to the garden were flooded and I expect that the garden itself was under water. I could not go see for myself as the roads to it were shut down.   The railroad tracks however, would act as a barrier keeping the rain in the lower area to the north of the tracks which is where the garden is located.

taken with my cell phone so not as clear but you can see the darkened earth from the rain

Lots of tomatoes, but nothing ripe because it is not that warm.  The rain is not making the tomatoes happy.  They may die from too much moisture.

When I was finally able to visit on August 23rd you could see the mud and dirt in the garden paths showed that a river must have run through the garden area.  It was too wet to walk even on the paths and I became a muddy mess just trying to harvest a few zinnias for the garden club competition.

Because of the rain, the weed population, especially in the back garden area around the squash and beans, has more than doubled.  Some of the weeds are taller than the squash and melons.  You can see the yellowish fruit about int he middle of the last photo.  That is the only melon so far on the musk melon plant, but with all this rain I am not sure the powdery mildew problem will be going away at all.

The peas were about to give us a second crop, but I think they are going to die back instead because of the wet ground.  The beans both bush and heirloom climbing beans seem to be faring well, but I could not harvest them  for fear of ruining the soil around them.

All I did was cut my zinnias.

You can see the remnants of the river in the path to the right but the broccoli rabe and hot peppers seem to be doing well despite the soaking.

I did not stay very long, as I was sinking into the ground everywhere I stepped both in the grass around the patch and on the garden paths too.

Weekly update - August 17

This week we continued to weed and harvest and water a bit, but there has been plenty of rain here recently, almost too much.  Everything is still looking very green and the tomatoes are ripening as we have had some warmer nights.

Looking to the east

Things are still very contained, even the herbs are staying somewhat separated from each other.

Looking to the west

The Kohlrabi I used to replace the lettuce is growing well.  If the small bugs that are eating the leaves on everything don't get tot them they should do rather well and give me a late September root crop.  Since we never planted carrots because we ran out of room this will be a nice item to go with the Celery root (Celeriac) that will mature around the same time.

The Zinnias were the happiest of plants int he garden this week.  As you can see they are covered with blooms.

The Calendula that I planted from seed along the front edge of the garden late in the season has come up well and is going into continuous bloom mode.  As soon as I clip off a flower others come to take there place.  This mix has two shades of lowers An orange that is like a pumpkin color and a red and yellow that looks almost like a straw flower.  So far not a single yellow bloom in the bunch.

I have so many calendula about to pop that I think I will need to plan to use them this fall in something special at the Backyard Patch.

The dwarf sunflowers are flowering and the heads are getting heavy and turning toward the ground.

My sunflowers are only about 2 feet tall.  But a few of the other gardeners in the community patch has full-sized sunflowers like these beauties.

There are signs of trouble in the garden however. Here is the climbing burpless cucumber vine and you can see the bug holes in the leaves and the dried and discolored leaves on the plant.  I am not sure if it is vertasiliam wilt, which I know is in the soil or the fungus from the potato bugs that I know have been plaguing these plants since they got about 2 inches tall.  Either way the bugs and diseases are winning.

Musk Melon

A mold called powdery mildew, has also formed on all the squash plants including the acorn squash and the zucchini.

After the great harvest we had previously the plant now struggles to produce one zucchini at a time.

My melon which was slow to germinate and slow to prosper is covered with this same powdery mildew.

Acorn Squash also has yellowing and drying leaves

Zucchini

 The herbs, however, are doing very well.  The thyme is in need of harvesting, but I forgot the paper bags, so I will do it next time I visit. The Dill and fennel have already started to produce seed.  I have decided to let them go to seed as I have other plants so I can save the seed for next year as I will lose all these plants at the end of the season when the community garden shuts down. Even after harvesting them last week they have grown and filled back in like they were hardly cut.

Silver thyme

Looking to the east (rather bright because of sun angle at 8 PM)

Looking to the west Mint int he foreground trimmed back so you can see the tri color sage.

In the next few weeks I will harvest these again, allowing some of the calendula as well as the bronze fennel go to seed and perhaps the oregano and savory as well so I can save the seed from those plants which did very well this season.

Weekly update - August 11 Preserving Herbs

This week in the garden we were weeding and harvesting herbs.  There were some other vegetables, but with cooler nights they are growing more slowly, while the herbs were enjoying the extra rain and some previous trimming to sprout out with lots of new growth.

You can see how the herbs have spread and grown together.  In a couple of cases you have to move one plant aside to see another.

The tomatoes are still producing, but not has fast or as much as we would like.

The sunflower blooms have finally begun to open. and the Zinnias are blooming in a riot.

These are a dwarf variety that stands no more than 3 feet tall, so you look down at, rather than up at the blooms.




The calendula I planted from seed late in the spring is reaching blooming stage.  The first flower appeared this week.  Considering I kneeled on them and raked them when they were seedlings, forgetting I planted them along the front edge of the garden, they are doing rather well.

We needed to tie up the grape and cherry tomatoes as the branches have outgrown the first two sets of ties.

The Kohlrabi is moving beyond leafy branches to producing a bulb at the base.  They should be ready to harvest in late September.  They generally only need 8 weeks of growth to be able to harvest so we might actually be able to dig them sooner.

The broccoli rabe is still producing.  And we got one large zucchini this week to add the mountain of them from last week.

After surveying the garden I decided that while hubby watered I could get most of the herbs  harvested which would set the plants up for even better harvest in the next few weeks.

Once I cut herbs and brought them home I found that there were stowaways on the fennel.  This Swallowtail butterfly caterpillar came home with me.  I gave him the fennel and we will see if he becomes a butterfly!

Harvesting  / Preserving Herbs

Here is the harvesting basket this week.  The tomatoes and zucchini are on the bottom and then I filled in over them with herbs.  Since next week I will cut a few sunflowers, I thought this week I would cutthe zinnias for the vase int eh kitchen.

The dill went to seed weeks ago, due to the heat spell we had.  I did not do what I normally do with dill which is seed a row every two weeks to give me a continuous crop of dill weed.  I have that in the regualr herb garden so i just planted one plant here and decided I would harvest the seeds for pickling as they ripened.

Here is a photo identifying most of  the herbs in the basket.

I took the savory, mints and lemon balm and bundled them and hung them to dry.  You just pull of the leaves off the bottom of the stems, then bind the stems with a rubberband.  Then I loop the band over the arms or base of a hanger and hang them out of the sun in a place with good air circulation.

Always remember to label your herbs, because one plants looks the same as another once they are dry. (The herbs in front are lemon balm)

Here are the herbs after a week of drying (this is spearmint.)


I also dry herbs on trays of plates.  I have a plate stand (the kind you use for confections and tea service.  I place old plates on it and line them with paper towel.  I spread out the smaller herbs or loose leaves on those to dry.

Thyme with its tiny, thin stems cannot be bundled.  But it drys very easily, so I toss the thyme into a brown paper lunch bag with the variety of thyme written on the outside and stack them, open ends out to the room, on a shelf.  In a week the thyme is dry and I can transfer it to a jar and refill the paper bags.

Once you have dried the herbs until they crumble in your hand,  can take two weeks or more if it is humid, less if it is not. The you are ready to strip them from the stems and place them in storage jars.

fresh cut savory spread on towels on a plate

Dried savory ready to be stripped

stripped and ready for storage

In addition to drying the herbs for later use.  I also made some herbal vinegar.  This is one of the simplest and best ways to preserve the fresh herb flavors. There was not much tarragon, so I decided the best way to capture it was to craft a vinegar.  Tarragon is a great complement to wine vinegar.  With other herbs I use a plain distilled white vinegar.

tarragon in white wine vinegar

For details on how to make herbal vinegar, check out this how to post.

We also used some of the herbs fresh.  Here is a fruit salad with mojito mint ribbons.

Here is the herb garden and some of the other garden after we finished harvesting and weeding.  You can see how much more tame the herbs are now.

Tomato Disease Issues in the Garden

As I have posted in the weekly updates we have several tomato issues in the garden.  I have been researching these issues and have come up with the following information.

GROWTH CRACKS

Growth cracks result from extremely rapid fruit growth. This may be brought on by periods of abundant rain and high temperatures, or can occur when water is suddenly available to the plant through rain or irrigation after a period of drought. Cracks may radiate from the stem end of the fruit or may encircle the fruit. Cracks are often invaded by secondary fungi and bacteria that further rot the fruit.

Maintaining even moisture by watering regularly and mulching the soil around the tomato plant can help reduce growth cracks. Varieties differ in susceptibility to cracking, and variety descriptions may be helpful in choosing a plant less likely to crack.  Heirloom tomatoes are most susceptible to growth cracks.  I still like them even though,due to our heavy rains, we have many growth cracks this year.

BLOSSOM END ROT

Among the problems we have seen with our tomatoes is blossom end rot.  This is very common among Roma tomatoes.   Affected fruit have a tan to black flattened spot at the blossom end of the fruit. Secondary fungi and bacteria can enter the blossom end rot area, resulting in further decay of the fruit. Blossom end rot can appear on fruit in any stage of development, but it is most common when fruit are one-third to one-half grown. The first fruit produced by the plant are often most severely affected. Fruit that develop later in the season on the same plant can be unaffected. I generally, in the past, ignored this problem unless it became so rampant that I did not get enough fruit.  I was warned that some people believed there were calcium problems in the soil of the Community Garden and the cause of blossom end rot is calcium deficiency in the tomato plant. Although blossom end rot means that the plant does not have enough calcium within the developing fruit, it does not mean that there is a lack of calcium in the soil. Often blossom end rot occurs as a result of several cultural or environmental factors that affect the plants ability to take up calcium. Fluctuations in soil moisture, heavy applications of nitrogen fertilizer, and injured roots can all predispose tomato plants to blossom end rot.

Blossom end rot, M. Grabowski

The amount of calcium salt available to the plant decreases rapidly in the presence of excessive salts such as potassium, magnesium, ammonium, and sodium. Extreme fluctuation in moisture can also reduce the availability of calcium salts needed by the plant. Heavy applications of nitrogen fertilizers and abundant rain cause rapid and luxuriant plant growth and predispose the fruit to blossom-end rot, especially during periods of dry, hot weather.

Blossom-end rot can be minimized by maintaining a uniform supply of moisture through regular watering and soil mulches, applying fertilizer according to the results of a soil test, and avoiding root injury by not cultivating within 1 foot of the base of the plant.

Although we have blossom end rot on a few plants it is not wide spread and can be linked to the heavy rains we had so is not unexpected.  I just pick the damaged fruit and dispose of it.

VERTICILLIUM WILT

Probably verticillium wilt

However among the plants we have other symptoms such as spotted and dying leaves.  So my first thought was we might have Verticillium wilt.  This is a common fungus and I have seen it before in my herbs and my maple trees. The fungi causing this disease overwinter in the soil as mycelium or on plant debris as microsclerotia. The fungi infect a susceptible host through wounds in the roots caused by cultivation, nematodes (microscopic worms), or the formation of secondary roots. This disease is considered a cool-weather disease, developing between 65° and 83°F.  Since we had a very cool start to the season I thought this was a great disease to start with in my research.

verticillium wilt

Diseased plants often have only a portion of the plant wilting, such as one or two stems rather than the whole plant, but it will be a whole section of a plant, not a few leaves or branches.  The look of my tomato plants is a bit different than what is expected in Verticillium wilt.  However, my search here took we to other fungal diseases that lay dormant in the soil and that was when I discovered early blight.

EARLY BLIGHT

Early blight is a common tomato disease caused by the fungus Alternaria solani. It can affect almost all parts of the tomato plants, including the leaves, stems and fruits. The plants may not die, but they will be weakened and will set fewer tomatoes than normal. Early blight generally attacks older plants, but it can also occur on seedlings. Stressed plants or plants in poor health are especially susceptible. Early blight is also a problem with potatoes.

Symptoms: Dark spots with concentric rings develop on older leaves first. The surrounding leaf area may turn yellow. Affected leaves may die prematurely, exposing the fruits to sun scald.

Early Blight fungus overwinters in plant residue and is soil-borne. It can also come in on transplants. Remove affected plants and thoroughly clean fall garden debris. Wet weather and stressed plants increase likelihood of attack. Copper and/or sulfur sprays can prevent further development of the fungus. 

The best treatment for this is to rotate crops.  It can take 4 to 6 years to work out of the soil.  And it comes from infected plant material not being removed as well as coming in on seedlings and compost materials imported from other locations.  In other words all the ways people grow plants in a community garden increases the potential for this disease to be present.  There are no good ways to treat for this fungus in a home garden so the best treatment is disease resistant plants.  

Here is a list of some resistant plants: 

Aunt Ginny's Purple - Heirloom, indeterminate, beefsteak (16 oz.) 
Big Rainbow - Heirloom, indeterminate, bi-color beefsteak (16 oz.) 
Black Plum - Heirloom, indeterminate, plum (2 in.) 
Juliet - Hybrid, indeterminate, cherry (1 ounce) 
Legend - Open-pollinated, determinate, beefsteak (14-16 ounces) 
Manyel - Heirloom, indeterminate, yellow globe (8-10 ounces) 
Matt’s Wild Cherry - Heirloom, indeterminate, cherry (1/2 inch) 
Mountain Supreme - Hybrid, determinate, globe (6-8 oz.) 
Mountain Fresh Plus - Hybrid, determinate, globe (12 ounces) 
Old Brooks - Heirloom, indeterminate, globe (6-8 ounces) 
Tigerella (aka Mr. Stripey) - Heirloom, indeterminate, globe (4-6 oz.) 
Tommy Toe - Heirloom, indeterminate, cherry (1 inch)

Resources:

        Identifying Diseases of Vegetables, by MacNab, Sherf and Springer, Penn State, 1983 

   University of Minnesota Extension service website 

         http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/yard-garden/vegetables/#tomatoes

Texas A&M Agrilife Extension website
      http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/vegetable/problem-solvers/tomato-problem-solver/