A 'Special' Day for Zucchini!

Ah…it’s August and I’ve been bit delayed in adding another post to my blog! It’s not that I didn’t want to do it but my husband and I just finished up our second year on our church’s festival committee. Together we served as vice-chairman of the event and Tom headed up the ‘Set-up & Take-down’ committee and I was in charge of the Silent Auction committee. On Sunday when the event was over – we breathed a big sigh of relief and an even bigger ALLELUIA!

But the highlight of that weekend was the marriage of my niece Amanda! She was a radiant bride! Tears of happiness flowed for the new couple. AND my brother (father of the bride) was a dancing machine that night…my feet STILL hurt. It was (if I do say so myself) a wonderful day spent with all my loved ones!

I did want to write a quick post before the weekend rolls around though…just so you are prepared for a ‘special event’ on Sunday, August 8th! Its National Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day!

If you are a home vegetable gardener and grow zucchini well you know how ‘prolific’ this vegetable can be in your garden! Zucchini is very nutritious and can be used in many dishes, even dessert! I’ve had Zucchini Muffins and even Zucchini Chocolate Cake…chocolate can make most things taste better. BUT still – you can only eat so much of the stuff so what do you do with it but…sneak some onto your neighbor’s porch! And after you are done with your stealth mission try this zucchini recipe….like I said – I’ve known that zucchini was versatile but this one takes the cake! And if your neighbor catches you sneaking that zucchini onto their porch…offer them one of these!

Zucchini-tini

Zucchini Water:
1 large zucchini
Kosher salt
Zucchini-tini:
2 tablespoons simple syrup, recipe follows
2 tablespoons zucchini water
1/2 cup unfiltered sake, cold
1/4 cup ounces gin
2 thin slices zucchini, for garnish
Directions
To make the zucchini water: Grate the zucchini on the large holes of a box grater and put it in a fine mesh sieve over a bowl; sprinkle with a pinch of salt and let stand for 15 minutes. Press the zucchini to extract as much water as possible.
To make the cocktail: Put the simple syrup, zucchini water, sake, and gin in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well and strain into 2 chilled martini glasses. Float a zucchini slice in each drink and serve immediately.
Simple Syrup:
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
Put the sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat; stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Cool and transfer to an airtight container. Syrup can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.

If you are interested in growing zucchini in your home garden, check out the article on the University of Minnesota website titled Growing Zucchini and Summer Squash in Minnesota Home Gardens.

Hope your summer (and your gardens) are treating you well – it’s going fast! But there are still many days to enjoy out there before the snow flies. Have a great weekend and….

Happy Digging!

In a Pickle!

This evening after I got home from work I decided to head out to my gardens for my daily 'sputz'...my 'walk-about' to see 'what's growin on!' The last few days we were blessed with warmth and rain which has been a boon to my veggie garden - especially my cucumber patch. When I say patch I mean I planted one 'Bush' cucumber - a cucumber plant that stays compact. Well - not in my garden! It's shall we say been very prolific in producing all kinds of cucumbers! But oh...how tasty they are!

Picking cucumbers takes me back to my childhood when summers meant helping my mom and my grandma, pick, clean and slice these long green beauties. If we were early enough in the season and kept a watchful eye we would pick a bushel of tiny green cucumbers that would become tiny dill pickles. Now as a child, I dreaded this rite of summer but now as adult - I wish I would have paid more attention to my mom and grandma as they worked away preserving summer's harvest. My grandmother and my mother have passed away but I remember those days well. My funniest memory of the cleaning process was when someone suggested to my mother that she should just load up the cucumbers in her old Maytag wringer washer (yes...I remember doing laundry with a wringer washer). Let's just say that I'm not sure that the Maytag Repairman would approve of what she was trying to accomplish! But it saved me from getting pruny fingers!

While I haven't tried canning/preserving pickles at this point I am slowly taking up some home preserving having started with jams, sweet pepper jams, tomato sauce and salsa.

Now for some cucumber trivia! Did you know that cucumbers have not always been universally loved? According to 18th century essayist Samuel Johnson, 'A cucumber should be sliced and dressed with pepper and vinegar and then thrown out as good for nothing.' Well, maybe he should have added some sour cream and fresh dill and he would have thought differently.

In biblical times the Palestinians guarded their lush vegetable gardens by sitting in raised lodges made of climbing cucumbers and their trellises....talk about a 'green building.'

While it's too late to do any planting this year but you'd like to try next year and want to do a little research check out the University of Minnesota Extension website for the article 'Growing Cucumbers in Minnesota Home Gardens. Lots of great information on selecting the variety you want, how to plant, caring for your cucumber plants and harvesting

As I stated before, I haven't attempted preserving pickles but when I decided to one of the first ones I will attempt is my mom's 8 Day Pickles - yes it did take 8 days of preparation before these tasty little slices were put in a canning jar and covered with the sweet spicy green brine. They were definately a family favorite and always the first to disappear out of the pantry.

And remember...get your kids (or in my case grandson Elliot) involved in gardening - someday they'll appreciate it!

Happy Digging!

My very first post.....

HELLO!

Welcome to my new blog...'What's Growin' On?' I've had this blog set up for quite some time but have never done anything with it as I'm pretty unfamiliar with the blogging world. Guess I was a bit inspired by Annie who writes a food blog called The Dabble. Her husband works with my son and to make a long story short - I started following her blog! I thought - HEY! this looks fun so I'm gonna give it a whirl. The only difference is I will be talking gardening and not food...though for me gardening is 'food for my soul!'

In January 2000 I enrolled in a 48 hour core course at the University of Minnesota for the Master Gardener program. While you are thinking January...garden classes - what are you thinking....well it made a very cold January go by fast. After taking the class I then needed to do 50 hours of volunteer work either teaching, mentoring, etc. on anything gardening! What fun - I had a 'license' to talk gardening. One of my projects was working with kids that had to do community service work through the juvenile detention system. We were tasked with planting a vegetable garden at a local nursing home. Some Saturday's were a bit challenging but all in all ended up being very rewarding! My favorite story is when we were planting tomatoes, oregano and basil. I told them that if you rubbed the herb leaves between your fingers that the smell would remind of you pizza. Well the 'lesson' was met with eyes rolling in the back of their heads but then I had to keep from laughing when I saw two of the young boys do it and then overhead them say...HEY it does smell like pizza!

After my first year - my volunteer hours are now reduced to 25 hours and 5 hours of continuing education each year.

Shortly after my first year I contacted our local cable station in my community to see if they would be interested in some gardening segments for their monthly news casts and they said YES! The show has gone through a few changes since it first started but I still continue on! I have a wonderful sponsor - Farmer Seed & Nursery who pretty much lets me come in and do my 'garden thing.' Over the course of the years people have actually said to me, 'Hey - I've come to see you several times down and Farmer Seed and you're never there!' That's right - I do have a real job (gotta pay for my plants somehow) and then I explain to them how this all works!

So - for the past 10 years I've been the 'star' of my own little TV show and it's funny as I'm out shopping or running errands people actually recognize me...though they don't ask for an autograph!

So - there you have it - my first post in my blog. I'll admit right off the get-go that I'm certainly not a professional writer - so I will probably have bad punctuation and dangling participles BUT what I do know is that I can share with you my love of gardening, advice and even a few photos of flowers in my garden (I'm not a professional photographer either but I love to take pictures of some of my favorite flowers).

So for today, my first post I will sign out now and say....Happy Digging!'