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larryhammerA comment in another journal reminded me of a story from my childhood.
My father was a farmer boy, and missed the fresh vegetables he grew up with. Over time, he gradually converted almost half of our backyard into a large garden, if you count the fruit trees. As he cultivated more ground, he got more adventurous. His heirloom watermelons were especially good, though the vines, if not herded, would spread over the entire patio and (remaining) lawn. And then he started growing zucchini, as we call them in the States—some places know them as courgettes. That first year, he decided to start small and plant “only” five hills.
Imma pause a moment to let those who can see where this is going to recover.
For those without experience, here’s the thing: zucchinis are ridonkulously productive. A single plant alone produces several squashes over the summer. And each hill had a half-dozen.
Making this worse: Dad was an organic chemist, and one of his research interests was plant growth factors. (He had a few patents for growth hormones.) Plus he was really into optimizing his compost. He wanted his urban patch to be as productive as possible.
So, yeah, perfect storm. We were swamped with squash. Whelmed, over and under. Huge squash, often longer than 16in / 40cm. Just one stuffed with a tomato-meat sauce was a family meal. And they don’t preserve well. Even Dad got sick of eating them. We were giving the stuff away by the basketful to anyone who would stand still long enough—or in the case of his grad students, forcing them to take as many as they could carry.
By the end of the summer, he admitted that had been a mistake. So the next year, he planted “only” two hills.
It was still too much zucchini. But not as traumatically too too many as that first year.
---L.
Subject quote from My Familiar, John Godfrey Saxe.
My father was a farmer boy, and missed the fresh vegetables he grew up with. Over time, he gradually converted almost half of our backyard into a large garden, if you count the fruit trees. As he cultivated more ground, he got more adventurous. His heirloom watermelons were especially good, though the vines, if not herded, would spread over the entire patio and (remaining) lawn. And then he started growing zucchini, as we call them in the States—some places know them as courgettes. That first year, he decided to start small and plant “only” five hills.
Imma pause a moment to let those who can see where this is going to recover.
For those without experience, here’s the thing: zucchinis are ridonkulously productive. A single plant alone produces several squashes over the summer. And each hill had a half-dozen.
Making this worse: Dad was an organic chemist, and one of his research interests was plant growth factors. (He had a few patents for growth hormones.) Plus he was really into optimizing his compost. He wanted his urban patch to be as productive as possible.
So, yeah, perfect storm. We were swamped with squash. Whelmed, over and under. Huge squash, often longer than 16in / 40cm. Just one stuffed with a tomato-meat sauce was a family meal. And they don’t preserve well. Even Dad got sick of eating them. We were giving the stuff away by the basketful to anyone who would stand still long enough—or in the case of his grad students, forcing them to take as many as they could carry.
By the end of the summer, he admitted that had been a mistake. So the next year, he planted “only” two hills.
It was still too much zucchini. But not as traumatically too too many as that first year.
---L.
Subject quote from My Familiar, John Godfrey Saxe.
no subject
Date: 11 June 2024 03:05 pm (UTC)