Zounds a Zucchini!

There’s something about zucchini that inspires quotable quotes: Jim Davis: “Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread and pumpkin pie.”

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Gwyneth Paltrow: “When I pass a flowering zucchini plant in my garden, my heart skips a beat.” John Gould: “The first zucchini I ever saw I killed it with a hoe.” Cameron Dokey: “There is a tale . . . It tells of the days when a blight hung over our land. Nothing prospered. Nothing flourished. Not even zucchini would grow.” Anne Lamott: “You reap exactly what you sow, that is, you cannot grow tulips from zucchini seeds.”

Everything you heard about zucchini is true – and then some. Even the blackest of black thumbs is likely to succeed beyond dreams of avarice. Perfect also to introduce children to the wonders of vegetable gardening

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However, when the doctor recommended berries in the diet, they were almost certainly not thinking of zucchini. Botanically, the summer squash Cucurbita pepo is just that: a berry – even though it is treated as a vegetable in the kitchen. Actually, the prolific yellow blossoms make it attractive as an ornamental also . . . and those flowers are edible too. Few crops could be simpler to grow. Two or three seeds stuck in the soil of a neglected sunny corner are likely to succeed. Or, as suggested, even in the flower border. But nothing says “zucchini” like a soil rich in organic matter. Better still, on a mound over a hole filled with compost kept constantly moist. In England gardeners have been known to grow them on their compost heaps. (You can always tell a good gardener by the size of their compost heaps.) Following the French fashion, they call them courgette, also followed by Belgium, Ireland, New Zealand, Netherlands, and South Africa but in Spain it becomes Spain calabacin. However, North Americans, Australians and Germans still know them by the Italian zucchini. Exactly how and when this summer squash, distinguished by its five-sided prickly stems reached Italy from its native Western Hemisphere is a mystery. Certainly it was over three years ago. Zucca is Italian for pumpkin or squash with zucchini in the plural diminutive form. Flourishing in Italy, it returned to blossom in North American gardens commencing in the mid-20th century.

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Can anything go wrong? Yes, it is all too easy to have too many plants. Packages contain far too many seeds for the average garden. Even a compact variety needs a square metre of lebensraum. Plant an entire package and expect a mercenary zucchini army to overtake the garden. Don’t even think about what to do with the resulting crop long green berries. Eating the flowers can reduce the eventual harvest. Like all the Cucurbitaceae, zucchini produce both male and female flowers. The male flowers are slightly smaller and lack the bulge at the bottom of their female companions that will eventually swell into the fruit . . . or vegetable. Other than overproduction, hot, humid muggy weather encourages powdery mildew on the foliage. Since this is encouraged by drenching with cold water, irrigate with a soaker hose. Wild squash relatives contain toxins called cucurbitacins to ward off noshing pests. Edible forms normally do not. If though they cross pollinate with ornamental cucurbits high in cucurbitacins and their seed is then saved for the following season, serious poisoning can occur. These toxins are not destroyed in cooking. In August 2015 an elderly German couple were hospitalized – he died, she survived after eating a vegetable marrow given them by a neighbour in Heidenheim

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