Hacker News Reader

Comment by ourmandave | Hacker News Reader

A few of my co-workers have gardens and around mid-season they'll bring in a bags and bags of vegetables they couldn't give away to friends and family.

And it always seems to be squash and zucchini.

View on HN

Home vegetable gardeners are hilarious (my own family included)

They're like "Hey I'm going to grow some vegetables this year".

Then on a late summer day they're like: "So uhh yeah, I have a problem. Do you happen to need 47 pounds of squash?"

Alternatively they get one single vegetable

Especially if they've been planting in the same plot for years.

Rotate your nightshades, people! If you keep planting tomatoes/potatoes/eggplants/etc in the same plot year after year, the Fusarium will build up and destroy your yield.

I grew one zucchini plant this year, it took up about 15 sqft and produced squash for weeks. I like zucchini but when you get a plant or two that is just prolific, there's just only so many ways to cook it and only so much of it you can eat.

My grandparents grew 30 tomato plants and had so many that even after canning over 100 quarts of tomato sauce they still couldn't keep up with all the tomatoes on the vines.

Idk, I see a lot of people here saying no one likes zucchini, or that it gets old fast -- but it's pretty versatile. Granted, it usually supplements other things. I personally could eat some version of summer veg nearly every day: kebobs, sautéed, baked. Straight zucchini fried or grilled or sautéed is also delicious. On top of that, there's zucchini bread, muffins and cakes. You can also pickle it.

I'm with you. Zucchini is the taste of summer for me. I eat so much of it, so many ways.

Tomato, eggplant, zucchini, the Mediterranean summer trio.

When I lived in a climate that was a little more moderate I'd grow just a few plants, maybe 8 at most, in raised beds with deep soil and even watering. With that I'd have more tomatoes than I could ever eat or give away. Well taken care of plants in a good climate are massive producers.

> My grandparents grew 30 tomato plants and had so many that even after canning over 100 quarts of tomato sauce they still couldn't keep up with all the tomatoes on the vines.

Once canning is done I would dry the rest.

We're (Oregon) drowning in Persimmons right now, and it also was a great apple year. I never grow zucchini or squash since my coworkers bully me to accept their excess every year.

I have an unusually large amount of freezer space. What I have done in the past with zucchini and swiss chard (another vegetable I usually grow a lot of) is (for the zuccini) shred it, squeeze out as much water as I can, then freeze it and use it to bulk up stews/soups/congee-ish dishes through the winter with vegetable. A suprisingly large amount of it can disappear into a dish so that it reduces caloric density (if that's a thing you are trying to do) and making a tasty dish create more servings.

For swiss chard, instead of the shred/squeeze step I just chop and cook before freezing.

The larger point is that I have been slowly moving to the bulk of my garden space being dedicated to vegetables that can, in one way or another be preserved (canned, tried, fermented, frozen, or just straight up stored like winter squash, onions, and garlic), with only relatively small amounts being dedicated to things that _must_ be eaten fresh.

I always thought of persimmons as a secret, special late-fall treat, and I had no idea how abundantly they grown until recently.

A family member let us pick pounds of them from one of his trees because he can’t get rid of them fast enough. I’ve been enjoying them diced with pumpkin seeds and manchego in salads, and even the very firm ones work great in the dehydrator, skin and all.

Seems the logical conclusion is to learn preservation techniques

All squashes can be roasted and pureed like you would for making pumpkin pie, and then they can be divided into portions and frozen.

I mean, yes, you can... But summer squashes (zucchini, yellow squash, etc) and winter squashes (pumpkin, butternut, acorn, spaghetti, etc) are not the same. And it's usually the former that home gardeners are trying to foist off on others.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com