The Rural Voice, 2006-08, Page 50Gardening
The pleasures and problems of summer squash
Rhea
Hamilton -
Seeger and
her husband
live near
Auburn. She
is a skilled
cook and
gardener.
By Rhea Hamilton -Seeger
Among the overflowing baskets of
vegetables that are coming off the
gardens this month, the summer squash
varieties stand out like jewels amid the
verdant splendor. The hot sultry days
of July and August beckon them forth
and adults and children alike enjoy
searching amid the broad green leaves
for these summer treasures.
Summer squash enjoy warm soil
and may be started early in peat pots
that can be planted directly into the
garden after all danger of frost is past.
Like so many other vegetables,
summer squash flourishes in rich soil
and lots of sun. Since they are largely
water, applying a topping of mulch
during the summer will help hold the
water in the soil between regular
watering. Of course preparing the soil
with compost and well -rotted manure
will also help conserve moisture. Aim
for about an inch of water a week
especially during mid -summer drought
conditions to encourage plants to set
more fruit.
But don't stop there. Like tomatoes,
squash are heavy feeders and a boost
of fertilizer with moderately high
nitrogen (5-10-10) will go a long way
to ensuring a good crop.
But like any garden crop there are
some pitfalls to watch out for.
Summer squash can be fair game for
anthracnose, bacterial wilt, downy and
powdery mildews, mosaic and scab
diseases. There are varieties out there
that are more resistant than others to
these diseases. But remember, healthy
plants have a better chance of fighting
off these diseases than those that are
starved for nutrition or water.
I usually have more problems with
bugs than diseases. My thinking is that
there is always room to share a bit of
garden with a few bugs. After all the
birds enjoy the bugs. But I do get a
46 THE RURAL VOICE
little testy when I go out to admire my
new crop of squash and find only
stumps of stems where there were
handsome new leaves. If you have a
small garden, picking off a few squash
bugs or cucumber beetles is just part of
the life of a gardener. Get the kids to
help.
Vine borers are another matter and
can wipe out your crop. You can cover
the crop to keep the pests from laying
eggs but you have to let the bees have
access during blossom time. I am
trying out a bit of advice. I am planting
my squash in mid -summer to avoid the
vine borers and other pests. We will
have to see how it works. Since I
didn't make/find the time to get the
garden in during the proper time this
spring, I have decided to give it a go
at the end of July. I am treating it like
a second planting. Yeah that's the
ticket. The cooler nights and hot days
are perfect.
The most popular of the summer
squash is , of course, the zucchini.
There are very few vegetable
gardeners who have not been overrun
at some point by a bumper crop of
'zuucs'. You see them. those giant
green tubular monsters, at roadside
stands, in the office coffee room, or
being lugged up your drive by a well
meaning neighbour. I was about 10
when I spotted my first monster zuuc
in the garden. My dad was disgusted
that we had missed picking it when it
was six or eight inches. I quickly
learned that oversized zucchini stress
the plant and reduce the number of
new small courgettes from being
produced. So you can imagine how
surprised I was when I first tried
zucchini bread and the satisfied baker
told me she made eight loaves from
one zucchini. Oh my.
During the late 70s zucchini was
quite popular in our area of Huron
County. Every summer saw baskets of
surplus appear at work for gardeners
and non -gardeners alike to enjoy.
There was a constant buzz about how
to cook them and who had the best
zucchini bread recipe. Always moist,
you could spice up your recipe with
ginger, cinnamon and cloves. Thanks
to exposure to ethnic cooking zucchini
and other summer squash are great in
ratatouie, shish kabobs, stirfries, and
raw in salads and even pickled.
But there is more to summer squash
than your typical dark green zucchini.
You can find traditional yellow squash
with slender, bent necks or cylindrical
yellow squash that are smoother and
more uniform in shape. Others are pale
yellow and still others have slight
ridges or gray mottled skin. Among
my favourites are the patty pans which
some call scalloped squash. They are
round with a scalloped edge to them
and come in both yellow and green.
So when do you pick summer
squash? Apparently there is no squash
that a good cook cannot make
something out of but why stress the
kitchen staff with a 15 -pound squash
landing on the counter. Summer
squash are their tastiest when picked
young. You should be able to cut the
skin with your thumbnail. Look for
zucchini when they are four to six
inches long. You can pick them at
eight inches if you are planning on
stuffing them. Crooknecks and
straightnecks are best at six to eight
inches and patty pans should be
between three and five inches in
diameter. Like so many vegetables, the
more you harvest the more you
encourage the plant to produce right up
to frost time.
If you have had your fill of squash
and the plants are still flowering, eat
the flowers. Squash blossoms are quite
tasty and have landed on my plate in a
number of delightful ways. The
colourful healthy choice is newly
opened blossoms finely slivered and
added to your favourite tossed salad.
They can be stuffed with such things
as spiced cream cheese and left whole
or gently sliced to go on toast rounds.
For the less health conscious you
can batter and deep fry them. Why
not? We have battered and deep fried
zucchini that is always popular with a
creamy dip. Squash blossoms are high
in vitamins A and C and also contain
significant amounts of iron and
calcium. Well all this writing about
squash has made me hungry. My next
stop is to weed the vegetable patch and
check for some zucchini. Dad is
coming out and I don't want to scare
him with a monster squash.0