If they start saying "Feed me Laurie!"... don't. Just back away slowly and the run!

I think, somehow, that's payback for past transgressions. Or it's Soba's idea of a practical joke. Or both.

Maybe Michael Jackson planted them.

so long as you aren't planting poison ivy or poison oak...

zukes - the kudzu of the Valley

Zukes gone wild! Film at 11! Good thing you are blogging most days...that way we can keep tabs on you and make sure you are not eaten by a giant squash.

Amazing how the totally neglected nuclear strength zukes can grow no matter what, and the carefully tended stuff just keels over or succumbs to bugs. Ah, the life of a gardener.

I really like the zuke diesel idea - you would make billions!!!

You need to cultivate friends that cook, friends that like zucchini, friends that will invite you over for the cooked zucchini.

Or ... figure out the zukediesel --- there HAS to be a way.

I couldn't resist... I googled "zucchini wine". And there is a recipe! Seriously!

http://scorpius.spaceports.com/~goodwine/zucchiniwine.htm

This is a very cool sweepstakes! And, why can't chocolate appear unbidden like a zucchini - we had a return zucchini as well. I like the zukediesel idea or zukelectricity or zukephone or zukepod. Hmm...I made pickles & relish one year from zukes because the bugs ate ALL the cucumbers. It was pretty easy, except for burning myself and having sticky stuff on all bits of the kitchen.

i totally think you should try to make wine from zukes. you could be onto something here. something BIG! maybe we could end dependence on oil and run our cars on zuke juice.

*unsolicited garden advice, take it for what it's worth*

volunteer plants have a tendency to revert to their hybrid nature and not produce edible fruit/veg. i pull volunteer tomatoes, zukes, melons etc.

melons, lopes, cukes and a few other plants like to be sown in hills with lots of yummy compost and manure. this helps keep them warm (or cool, in your case) and also conserves water.

advice aside, it will be interesting to see what develops on your plants!

We make zucchini patties. Grated zuke, italian breadcrumbs, egg, grated parmesan and whatever seasonings you like (I use Old Bay). Form into patties, fry and serve with thousand island or ranch or whatever you like.

There aren't really measurements because it kind of depends on how much zucchini you grate. Looks like you might need a lot of bread crumbs and egg.

We planted 6 watermelon and only one remains to cling to life. We also planted 6 cantaloup and still have 4 left. My husband thought we needed 9 tomatoe plants for some reason (he doesn't eat tomatoes), and none of them have died, so we will have plenty tomatoes - and he WILL eat them.

Laurie! Eat those blossoms! They are delicious, and a great way to prepare them involves deep-frying (don't all the best things in life involve that?)

I've done it this way: Make a light batter out of 1 part flour and 1 part beer. Season with a little salt if you like. Dip the blossoms in the batter and shake off the excess gently. Fry those babies in hot oil until light golden brown; remove and drain.

I know that you know your way around a deep fat fryer so you won't be scared by all that bubbling hot oil. If you feel like it, they are wonderful stuffed with a little goat cheese. Or just eat them as is. They are wonderful!

Seriously, and I am not even kidding about this: EAT THE ZUCHINNI BLOSSOMS. I see other people have already been giving you recipes. Listen to them!

I was going to suggest eating the blossoms too. It's easier to eat more of them. Nipping the zucchini in the bud as it were.

Gad-zukes, Laurie. Eh-heh ;).

I hate the zucchini. My mother had so many zucchini one year that our freezer was overflowing with bread and anything else you could possibly use a zucchini for. Seriously. My mom found a "recipe" for something called zucchini pinapple that she forced us to eat over ice cream.

Blurgh.

I love the recommendation to eat the blossoms. It's brilliant, and one of the ways you can prevent these plants from taking over your house and barricading themselves inside.

You could also allow them to grow and take them to the farmers market and or make zucchini pie! A fantastic excuse to eat cheese with overcooked vegetables.

Zucchini bread. Nuff said.

I am right there with everyone else saying the blossoms are REALLY good eating. :-)

You know what else is really awesome? Fried squash blossoms. Seriously, they're the best thing ever.

And apprently I need to read the comments. Oops! Yes, eat the blossoms!

The zucchini flowers (or as we say in the UK, courgette flowers)are lovely stuffed, and would pre-emptively solve the zucchini/courgette glut problem...

Of course, you'll still have to cook, but they are prettier than the fruit/vegetable/mutant alien...

Ohhhh, your gardeners are making me SO MAD! If somebody took out my vegetable garden while I was away, I would call the ACLU or something.

You've got seriously scary Zucchini Mojo going on.

Make zucchini bread! It's delicious (like banana bread) and you can put butter on it. It freezes well so you can eat it during your three days of winter!

Zucchini is also very delicious if you pick it while it's small, cut it into slices, then lightly fry it or grill it with a little olive oil and salt. It's done with it's still a little al dente/tender/golden brown and not yet mushy. It takes literally about three minutes and i could eat it by the pound. It's gross if you make it with monster zucchini though. When there aren't any seeds, it's wonderful stuff.

Hubby and I use cut up zucchini instead of ground meat in spaghetti sauce. Add a little cheese on top, and we don't miss the meat at all.

I've never eaten a zucchini blossom in my life, but how can you not like a recipe that's 50% beer? I think you need to batter a blossom or two. And sure, cram 'em full of goat cheese, too.

Bring 'em on!!! I'll preheat the oven! We'll make a loaf for everyone you've ever met. Zucchini bread for everyone!

Zucchini smoothies!

By the way, have you ever tried growing sedums? I have a skinny clay soil strip that bakes into rock between my driveway and the house. Nothing grows in it but sedums. I have about ten different varieties, they bloom at different times all summer and they spread happily but in a well-behaved manner. They also grow in both sun and reasonable shade. They have grey, blue, green, purple, yellow or variegated leaves in a ton of different shapes and bloom with white, pink, orange or yellow flowers. They can get knee-high or taller or grow into flat mats. Also, butterflies love them.

I am so envious of your long growing season since mine lasts less than five months of the year.

When I was a kid we had a similar zucchini overload. My mother made zucchini pancakes. Blerg.

Try cooking the zukes in some chicken broth with garlic and Italian seasoning. Excellent side dish. Or, make a "crust" out of cooked pasta with a little bit of egg and parm, then fill with zucchini cooked as above with a can of crushed tomatoes and mushrooms thrown in and top with mozzarella cheese. Bake (or microwave if the oven still doesn't work) until the cheese is bubbly. Yum!

Well, I'm impressed by your accidental zucchini. I tried mightily to grow zucchini on purpose, and it seemed to be going OK, but every time I got a yellow flower, it got promptly eaten off by some sort of animal. Not a single zuke all summer. I chicken wired, scarecrowed, nothing scared that varmint away.

Tomatos, on the other hand, have been good to me.

I noticed you have squash blossoms on your zukes. They themselves make a great treat. While you can slice them up to add a nice subtle squash flavor to a salad, they are usually prepared stuffed with cheese and fried. And as a southerner I'm *sure* you could appreciate fried squash blossoms (and did I mention stuffed with cheese! You gotta love cheese!). A google search for "fried squash blossoms" gives you a multitude of recipes to choose from.

I've longed to cook zucchini blossoms... do eet! do eet! do eet!!!!

Just google for a recipe that looks good to you! I will have to start checking the farmers markets for them soon.

Stuff those blossoms with cheese, batter the whole thing and then deep-fry them. A new food for you to try and in the end, no zucchinis either!

Wow. Zuke wine sounds pretty nasty (granted, I'm not a big wine drinker...). Some of the best chocolate cake I've ever had has been made with zucchini, so maybe some cooking could be in your future?

Pick the flowers, fill them with cream cheese and chives, bread and fry. YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PLEASE fry up those blossoms and post pictures! My mom used to grow squash (and yes, those overtook our backyard every summer). When we got sick of eating the vegetable, she would fry the blossoms and they were so good. Since we've stopped growing them, I haven't been able to eat those anymore! =(

Clearly, they are evil zucchini bent on destruction. Quick, I smell a sci-fi movie of the week!

Hey, I don't even like zucchini but anything that can be breaded, deep-fired, and dipped in ranch dressing is edible as far as I'm concerned!

Ok: You could make zuke bread, fry the zuke and toss with penne pasta and marinara and mozz and bake, or coat in olive oil, garlic salt, sweet basil and steam, or maybe blanch them and freeze them to have all year round. I'm sure you could ask your mom or dad to ask a neighbor back home how to pickle the stuff. My papa pickled everything he could get his hands on. :P

Or you could do the sensible thing, pull up the damn things and put them in the trash! lol

you do have a lovely patch of dirt growing,my dear!
Obviously you were meant to be the zucchini queen. I'm glad you've accepted your fate.
Now start working on that formula for zukediesel!

Yeah, zucchini bread is good. I weeded out the suspect squash-related plants with the weeds Sat. I have one lone green bean plant in my raised bed.

Everybody sing along! "ZUCCHINI WIIINE! SEVENTEEN...."

laurie,

not to be a downer but...something to consider. if there is anyway that some stray (outdoor) cats could have possibly gotten into your veggie beds and used it as their litter box...DO NOT EAT ANYTHING that grows from it!!! another blogger had that same problem and only from reading her blog did i learn how bad it is to eat food grown in the beds. she has had to start all over and make her beds "cat proof". hope this helps and again i'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Could you apply your square technology to the zukes? It would at least be a partial victory. And you've got plenty to experiment with!

Can we vote?

I vote for the zukediesel and the zukewine. Priorities, people.

Now I'm all hungry!
.

Laurie -

It seems as though the zukes will survive anything. Am I the only one thinking.....Square Zucchini Project!!!

(oh wait, scrolled up to see how to spell zucchini and I am not the only one with this thought! Also - cat deposited seed = eeewwwwww)

My Dad used to call them "volunteer" zucchini. Sometimes they got cross pollinated with other gardeny things and came out kind of mutant, but we had to eat them just the same. And the poor dear departed watermelons probably just needed lots more, a-hem, Water? I'm guessing.

I know for a fact that you can get molds to put around growing cucumbers (which would obviously work just as well for zukes) that make them grow into shapes!! I don't have a link handy but you could probably google it. I have seen heart- and star-shaped ones. It's no square watermelon, but still pretty fun!

Honey, just pick the Zuke flowers and dip them in egg and panko crumbs from Trader Joes and fry them. They won't make a zucchini! and it takes a bunch to make dinner. And they are super yummmy!

Must watch for that cross-pollination - is there a possibility of zucchini-green pumpkins? I read about that in a vegetarian cookbook - they cautioned that it (the mutant pumpzucchinikin) made neither good vegetable dish or pie.

Just sayin'. Good luck.

OMG Zukediesel! I would totally drive a car that ran on zukes. Lord knows every summer I grow more zukes than we could possibly eat. My husband takes them to work and doles them out, he's all, "Who wants garden-fresh zucchini? All natural, no pesticides, my wife doesn't believe in killing bugs unless they are actually in our house!" And his coworkers LOVE them. These are clearly people who don't have zuke plants in their own gardens. Which is fine with me.

The upshot of all that is that I would totally drive a car that ran on zukes! And I also really like the word "zukediesel."

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no oh no!

That's too many zukes for one city, much less one house!

Unless, of course, you do figure out how to run your Jeep on dieselchinni because that'd be rad.

But, for the love of Mike, compost all but one zucchini plant before I hear the news man announce that there was a woman found buried beneath a hatchet wielding summer squash.

That would be too much to take.

Your comment about how every year you try to grow watermelon reminded me of my Mom who passed away this year. Every year she would try to grow tomatoes. Now, she lived in Daly City which is also known as foggy city and we only have five hot days per year. Most years she just grew green plants, but every once in a while she would get a tomato that would get past the green marble stage. So this year, I will continue on her great quest to grow a tomato.

You and your gardening attempts are proof positive of the phrase "hope springs eternal!" I have really enjoyed following your gardening adventures, as I have no garden to adventure in. And I am guessing that even if you eat those blossoms, pull out the plants, compost them whatever that they will survive. My best suggestion would be to maybe declare a truce and live out a slightly uneasy coexistence--they take the back 40 and you keep the front.

My grandmother ends up with a ton of the damned things--there are only so many the ladies at bingo are willing to take....

You could also pick the flowers and wear them in your hair! That way, you still nip the zuchinnis in the bud and you don't have to cook. Of course, I don't know if zucchini buds last or if they are "wearable"-some flowers just aren't. Be sure you rinse them off first so you don't get ants in your hair!

I read Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, last year, and she talks about growing zucchini and the only time people in her community lock their doors is during zucchini season because otherwise people will sneak bags of zucchini into your house or your car while you're away! I believe she also has a recipe for zucchini brownies in there as well.

Free tomatoes, I have heard of. Free zuchs, no. Very wild and spooky, Laurie.

Have you thought about trying to make the zucchinis square? They might hate it enough to go away!

You should look up recipes for zucchini blossoms (sometimes they are fried!) - this is a quasi-delicacy in Italy, so that should appeal to you on one hand... on the other hand, how do you feel about eating a flower??? And I'll tell you, getting rid of some of those blossoms means a smaller zucchini invasion in mid-summer!

Email me if you want some recipies! I steal the blossoms off my Dad's plants.

Go to www.taste.com.au and search for "zucchini", you'll get lots of results. That site is a very good recipe database.

"The Kudzu of the Valley"!! said only from One Who Knows. Sounds like a sappy historical fiction book.

And ditto to all the squash-fryers and zucchini bread bakers and grillers above! you are so GREEN Laurie hahaha pun intended - organic dirt, no fertilizer, no pesticides, no seeds, yay for the earth! mucho betterer

oh, and tell Hartz they did good relacing Psycho Kitty with adorable poodle-type puppy in your side ad :o)

my all time favorite bumper sticker says, "End World Hunger, Plant Zucchini"....

OK Laurie, you have zukes, I had cherry tomatoes! one year I planted 1, that's ONE, 1 cherry tomato plant, in a pot on my front steps. It did very well, we enjoyed plucking a few cherry tomatoes as we went in or out and eating them right off the vine. Winter came, everything froze (I live in Maryland). The next spring and every spring for the past 4 years, I have to weed, and I do mean WEED, the tomatoes out of all my front flower beds. How did they survive the winter? The one with 3 blizzards and 26 inches of snow and frigid temps?!! I just know I don't like tomatoes anymore.

Slice the zukes into coins. Beat up an egg. Coat zukes with egg. Pour out some bread crumbs on a plate. Coat eggy zukes with bread crumbs.

Skillet. Olive oil. Crushed Garlic (lots). Heat. Add breaded zukes. Sizzle on each side until golden brown and delicious. Eat.

Cut the zukes into planks (getting rid of all the yucky seeds in the middle), dip in flour, egg, bread crumbs--fry. Cover with warmed up spaghetti or marinara sauce and shredded mozarella cheese (which will melt; if it doesn't, zap it briefly in the microwave). You could also use the planks to build a veggy lasagna, but it's more work. You will forget you're eating vegetables. Although I guess frying in oil kind of negates the nutritional value...

You can also grate up zucchini rather fine and add it to chocolate cake (boxed cake mix is fine). It makes the cake very moist. But you have to use chocolate or the cake becomes a sort of disconcerting green.

Maybe you could put them into smoothies!

MMmmmm . . . good zuchini recipes here. Here's a recipe that uses raw zuchini.

Zuchini - Cucumber - Feta - Kalamata salad

cucumber - peeled and cut into cubes
zuchini - slice into coins then quarter the coins do not peel)
feta cheese - crumbled
kalamata olives

Dressing:
1 TB lemon juice
1 TB olive oil
1 TB balsamic vinegar
herb of choice - choose only one: basil, oregano or dill

Optional: a few lettuce leaves, like red leaf. Just a few this is mainly a veggie salad.

Toss it all together and enjoy!

Are your neighbors feeding any of the local fauna (winged or legged) zuccini seeds? If so, I think I know where their "litter box" is!

Your next contest should be the best zuccini recipes!

Up until a year ago I had a house and a garden, but now I'm a 30-something and divorced and living in an apartment. Anyway, I have it on good authority that zucchini can successfully be hidden in chocolate chip cookies. See, cookies are vegetables...sorta.

From Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver
ZUCCHINI CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
(Makes about two dozen)
1 egg, beaten
½ cup butter, softened
½ cup brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
Combine in large bowl.

1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
Combine in a separate, small bowl and blend into liquid mixture

1 cup finely shredded zucchini
12 oz chocolate chips
Stir these into other ingredients, mix well. Drop by spoonful onto greased baking sheet, and flatten with the back of a spoon. Bake at 350°, 10 to 15 minutes.

Ditto all the comments about the blossoms. I like to fill them with ricotta or goat cheese and put them on a veggie pizza. Delicious and less fatty then deep frying.

If they are doing so well where they are, why are you going to move the zuke plants to where everything has died?

I have to say, living in a country where a *miniature* zucchini costs upwards of $4, I envy your resilient zukes. Wish I could take them off your hands!

Grow your tomato plants upside down! My sister got these and they are doing great.

Check this out: http://topsyturvys.com/10001.html

But! You can make your own by using plastic grocery bags. Just shore up the holes with duct tape if necessary and watch for birds trying to nest in the bags!

One plant per bag!
.

Mmmm courgettes. They're yummy, and dead easy to cook. If you want a great cookbook which tells you how to prepare loads of vegetables (and even gives you a lot of information about their history), then look no further than Jane Grigson's Vegetable book. It's superb and very handy if you happen to get an organic veggie box each week as it will tell you what to do with that random Jersualem artichoke or whatever.

pinch those flowers off, stuff em, batter em and fry em up. Tasty and fewer mature zucchini in the end.

http://homecooking.about.com/od/vegetablerecipes/r/blv261.htm

I have read three summers' worth of gardening travails now, and I have to ask: have you thought of buying a tarp or something to cover up your seedlings from the hot hot sun? I think it was your pepper plants that got sizzled to death last year, and it seems to me that if you got some poles, stuck 'em in the ground, and put a canopy over the back 40 or wherever else non-zucchinis are planted, you might do better.

Incidentally, the "watermelon patch" appears to be...um...totally dry. You did WATER the plants, right?

I'm telling ya, Laurie, some kind of sweepstakes with autographed zucchini as the prize - you know we'll sign up to win ANYTHING!

jennie, I don't know if it's the same recipe, but a few years back a guy at work was being overrun by zukes, and after bringing in the zukes themselves, and bread, his wife made zucchini chocolate chip cookies. They were AWFUL. It's pretty bad when anything sits around the office and won't be eaten.

oh..stuffed zucchini blossoms...yum!
fill with a mixture of seasoned ricotta..maybe a little fontina ... and batter and fry them like Allie said...oh..heaven

Not so much wild as feral. Trust me, you are perfectly normal (at least in this respect).

Zucchini lasagna is really good. (Really.) It is a fair amount of work, however. It is hardly any work at all to slice the zucchini lengthwise into 1/4-inch-thick strips (1/4 = approximate measurement! 1/8 or 3/8 is fine, really), lightly brush with oil and sprinkle with garlic powder, and grill about 5 minutes per side. One can grill a lot of zucchini while simultaneously grilling ribs (because the ribs cook much more slowly), and it is yummy.

Sauteed or grilled zucchini is good. Grilled veggies often serve as my dinner over the summer, sprinkled with parm or with just a drizzle of evoo. Also Giada makes stuffed zucchini blossoms that look really good, but I have never tried them, because it looks way too complicated for my level of cooking and also it involves eating flowers. on the other hand, I think she does fry them. . .

It sounds like you're going to be the Zucchini Fairy again this summer! My zucchini plants are just starting to come up so they'll be no need for you to visit my house this year! (you can visit just don't bring any zukes!)

three words: stuffed squash blossoms

http://superspark.wordpress.com/2007/06/17/stuffed-squash-blossoms/

One of my favorite cartoons ever is Foxtrot, and one of my favorite comics is when Andy (the mom, in case you're not familiar with said stellar comic (in which case, what is wrong with you?!?! Go buy an anthology *immediately*!)) tries to be a gardener. She comes in saying, 'Look, Roger, the first zucchini from my garden!' 'I thought you weren't going to plant a garden this year.' 'I wasn't, but I heard zucchini were super easy to grow. And just think, we'll have 23 more of these soon!' 'How do you know the number?' 'That's how many I planted, silly!' 'Um, I'm pretty sure you get more than one zucchini per plant...' 'How many more?' One of the kids sticks his head into frame and says, 'Hey, what's with the 10 million green things in the back yard?'

That's the beginning of about a four-week story-arc (it's in Assorted Foxtrot, in case you're interested, and no, I am not being paid, just pulling a Laurie), which everyone who has ever been inundated with zucchini will sympathize with. My parents have plenty of stories about leaving bags of zucchini on neighbors' porches, ringing the bell, and running away. My dad tells one about leaving four paper sacks full of zucchini on the information desk at his church, EVERY WEEK, all summer, when he was a teenager. Anonymously, of course. I don't think my grandparents ever again planted zucchini.

FYI--Betty Crocker's banana bread recipe is really good (and also easy), and zucchini is substitutable for the banana. Minimum of work--you could even grate the zukes in a food processor. (Bread is *much easier* to foist off on co-workers than veggies, too.)

About your assistant Julio - you might want to raise the age requirement to 21. After all, you do want to be able to send him out on wine runs. I'm just saying is all!

Here is an idea for the watermelon problem.

This year, buy a lovely ripe watermelon at a farmer's market. Eat some of the good parts then leave the watermelon carcass where you want watermelons to grow. Just let it rot there. In theory, next year you should have some volunteer watermelon plants....

It's a kind of chaos theory. You can't be allowed too much control over your destiny - uh backyard.

Maybe something keeps eating the watermelon plants?

It seems like, in place of banana's, perhaps you could put zukes in your smoothies.

Also, it could be that your watermelons aren't growing because they were lacking in water. They need lots and lots of moisture.

Finally, R@chael R@y made a wonderful pork chop recipe with cherry sauce, and then accompanied it with a yummy zuke side dish. I've made it. 30 minutes, and it's totally easy.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_24884,00.html

Holy Cow Batman!!! Those Zukes are scary man!!!!

Actually the Male blossoms are yummy to eat. looks like those are female blossoms (the swollen thingie at the bottom that will eventuall become fruit)
Dammitt i planted zukes just because I thought they would take over and cause I love zukes and cause my tomatos are all suffering from early blight and I can't stop it.
I also have container strawberries that are taking off.

OK,here I am, sitting in -- no wait, I'm NOT sitting in Wisconsin, I'm sitting in New York (it's a trip, yes I am knitting, and it's for a graduation) and now I'm hungry for zucchini. I'm going to go back and copy out all the recipes folks have put here, although (this'll get you for sure) I may have to *buy* some zucchini, 'cause since I quit work I don't have a source any more, how sad is that? Makes me tempted to go get another job among people who grow things.........

"Nuke The Zuke" ...possible bumper sticker?

You know, I never liked zukes much till a mate fed me some one night. He chopped them up, zapped them in the microwave and poured this herby tomato paste over it. Not bad. I have always wanted to try stuffed zukes though, with some cheese, bacon, capsicum etc in there... mmm, and this from a girl who doesnt really like them!

I have lots of great zucchini recipes, but here's a radical idea...if you really don't want to deal with an excess of zucchini, throw the seedlings away. Or just throw half of them away. It's really, really not a sin, no matter what my mother says! Or you could make them into a burnt offering to the Watermelon god. Or dig them up and transplant them, under cover of darkness, into someone else's yard (which may be how they got into your yard). Or pot them up and leave them in a public place with a note, urging peole to take them. I'm actually going to plant a zucchini this year because no one ever gives me their excess...not even my brother! I'd say send one to me, but it wouldn't survive the trip and it might branch out and devour the local post office, ala Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors...

In theory, next year you should have some volunteer watermelon plants....

Stuffed Zucchini blossoms, delicious.

I'm just catching up here but zucchini blossoms are a delicacy in Mexico...fry (because that's what we do) them lightly and add them to a quesadilla...yum!

And if you eat the blossoms, there will be no zucs, just sayin'.