The zucchini does it again!

Friday I was lamenting to my friend and neighbor about my pathetic dearth of zucchini this year. Only one of my hills germinated, and took four or five weeks to do it, so the only producing plant we've had is the start Rick bought along with the tomatoes. And I use the word "producing" loosely, as it has only given us three mediocre fruits, leaving us wanting for the main ingredient in several of our favorite summer recipes. A neighbor who usually plies us with his garden's bounty hasn't called once, and I refuse to buy zucchini. (You know what that would mean, don't you? They say you must not have any friends if you have to buy zucchini....) The week my family was here my sister and her husband spent the first half of the week in Medford to attend a wedding and see my BIL's family. One day she called me and asked, "You need some zucchini, right?" She thought it would be a joke, me the country-living, garden-tending sister and all. When I said, "YES! I am in desperate need of zucchini!" she burst out laughing, but then offered to bring some from her father-in-law's garden. Big suckers that they were, they still made wonderful zucchini patties and chocolate-cherry zucchini bread.

After my friend left Friday, I figured I'd check in on the garden, as I hadn't been out to pick anything for a week. I checked the zucchini first, and was amazed to find FIVE lovely, good-sized zucchini between the two plants! I picked three and promptly used two to make a zucchini tomato salad for a potluck we were invited to; I'll saute the third with onions and garlic for pasta tonight. Everything else looked good, too. Amazing what one decent rainfall will do. There has to be more to rain than just moisture, because you can water till the cows come home and it will never do for plants what an equal amount of moisture falling as rain does. Besides the zucchini I picked tomatoes, a bell pepper and harvested a nice little bucket of red potatoes from the two volunteer plants that came up this year.They were just erupting from the ground; is this common? I have only planted them one other time; Rick is not excited about devoting garden space to potatoes, since they aren't his favorite food. But they are a staple that I use in lots of recipes, so we might as well grow them as buy them. Look out next year!Yummy little winter squash are setting on nicely.

An English cuke is looking good; a pickling cuke is ready to pick.

The bell peppers aren't big, but they are prolific this year!

I need to go out and pick these purple and wax beans today.

That's how are garden grows at . . .