As you can probably tell from our harvest pictures, the summer squashes are definitely coming in. Pounds and pounds of them. As problems go, “too much squash” is thankfully not terribly dire. I’ve heard the rule of thumb is one plant per family, unless you really like squash. If you’re not drowning in squash, try pollinating your plants by hand, because from what I can tell it has been paying off in our garden!

Why are they so prolific?! Well, it’s to do with plants trying to make seeds – if you remove the part of the plant making seeds before it gets all the way there, the plant… tries again! This is why deadheading a flower makes more flowers. Nutritionally, it’s the reason a summer squash (mostly water) is so different than a winter squash (lots of carbohydrates) – very similar plants, very different stages of development.

COOKING SUMMER SQUASH
 

How I cook thee, let me count the way! You can braise, roast, saute, fry, grill, boil, or steam these guys to great success. Many people like to turn them into long noodles, by spiralizing or slicing, for a veggie-sort-of-pasta. You can pickle them, too, if you like pickles. 

Grating them is also a great way to cook with them! You can use them in fritters, or in a fritatta. Putting them in baked goods (muffins, quick breads, or even brownies) is a very popular way of adding moisture and fiber, but more importantly, using them up. 
 

You can also eat the blossoms, if you want to shake it up. They’re often served stuff with cheese, or breaded and fried.

Honestly, I’m a fan of sauteing them as a side with dinner, because it keeps my house cool in the summer. But, you don’t have to be as lazy as me – see the bottom of this post for a bunch of links to recipes for inspiration!
 

TASTE TEST!

I decided to cook the main 4 types of squash that have been coming in, and compare them! All of these squash belong to the same species (Cucurbita pepo) but all all slightly different subspecies or cultivars! Cultivars meaning a plant variety that has been cultivated for human consumption, which I did not know before today.

I sauteed slices of all 4 in a pan, with olive oil, salt, and pepper. They were all tasty, and the friends I roped into my experiment ate all of their squash, and could detect very minimal differences. We agreed the zucchini was a little more watery, the crookneck the sweetest, and the green patty pan having a lovely texture and vaguely green bean taste. The yellow patty pan seemed the most mature of all of them, and the most texture. 

They were definitely more similar than different in terms of flavour, so I say go ahead and pick based on shape or nostalgia! The zucchini offered the best shape for spiralizing into pasta. The patty pans could be hollowed out and stuffed fancily. One of my friends grew up with crookneck, I grew up with more patty pans, and we both found we slightly preferred them.

 

RECIPES

Here are a few recipes I’ve tried, and enjoyed! 
Quick Zucchini Saute – Smitten Kitchen

https://smittenkitchen.com/2007/08/quick-zucchini-saute/

 

Zucchini and Parmesan Topped Chicken – Hello Fresh

https://www.hellofresh.com/recipes/au-zucchini-and-parmesan-topped-57b4d87fb5793fb3038b4568/

 

James Beard’s Zucchini Bread http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/james-beards-zucchini-bread-56389932

 

Spaghetti with Tomatoes and Anchovy Butter, but with zucchini substituted for noodles

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/spaghetti-with-tomatoes-and-anchovy-butter

 

Zucchini chocolate chip muffins  http://www.wellplated.com/healthy-zucchini-muffins/

Kavita makes the following modifications to this recipe: 

-reduce the honey to ~2 Tbsp (Use either honey or substitute maple syrup) and reduce the brown sugar; since the banana and chocolate chips already add sweetness.   

-1 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour + 3/4 cup mix of flours (whatever I feel like: amaranth, teff, flax, oat, almond)  

Here are few pictures of the Summer Harvest from our Garden. and more to come..

Check out our new Soil&Water Sign.  Andra McFarlane was the awesome artist that designed this sign.  Jason Kihl, a metal artist, cut this sign out of metal for us and drove it out from Arizona to hand deliver it to the garden.  Thank you both for all your work on this.  It looks pretty amazing in the space!  

 

Ever grown amaranth in your garden?  It turns out it is pretty easy to grow and is fairly drought tolerant.  It is a hardy, high yield producing grain.  The leaves and the seeds are edible. Young tender leaves are best for flavor and can be used as you would spinach or kale. The seeds can be soaked overnight and cooked as additions to cereals or with other grains.  I personally like to grind it into a flour and add some to anything I am baking.  It adds a nice nutty flavor. The grain is high in protein, B-6, and some key minerals like iron and magnesium.    

I thought this would be a great addition to the Soil&Water garden to see it growing and participate in harvesting it too.  

During our workdays last week we threshed and winnowed some amaranth to plant in the garden. This particular variety, rainbow amaranth, was originally shared with us by Common Ground Garden in Palo Alto. Soil&Water grew it at Viola’s garden (a former backyard garden) and had held on to it for just such an opportunity.  

 

Last Wednesday, we took the dried stalks and threshed it using a hardware cloth mesh.  Threshing simply means to separate the seed from the stalk.  That was as straightforward as rubbing your hands across it.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To winnow (separate the seed from the chaff), we used a couple of bowls and allowed air to assist in the process.  We didn’t need it to be too clean since we were just going to plant it.  
Seeds can stay viable for quite awhile so fingers crossed this seed grows because the seeds have been sitting around for some time.   

 

 

 

 

We broadcast the seed across one of the beds to plant it during Saturday’s workday.  

This was a fun activity at the garden.  There was some debate about whether all varieties of amaranth are edible but after some Google searching it appears that most varieties are edible.  So consider including amaranth in your garden this summer and try it out.  At the very least, it makes an interesting looking flower!

If you’ve visited the Soil&Water garden, you might be wondering why we created a layout with mixed edibles in small rows.

“What’s the philosophy behind small-scale garden rows, anyway?”

I thought it would be a nice way for people visiting the garden to consider ideas for planting edibles mixed together in a small space. If you have limited planting space at home – and who doesn’t?! – how would you plant it? There are a ton of cool ideas out there for small garden plots, container gardening, even vertical gardens. (Check out this article on 16 cool raised bed designs from Sunset.com.) 

Our small-scale garden layout is based on an article from Sunset Gardens that plants mixed edibles in a 16′ x 16′ plot which came down to two main beds 11′ x 3′ approximately with beans and sunflowers along a back fence.

In the Soil&Water garden, our garden rows are 3′ wide already so where two rows come to an apex was perfect to mimic the same idea. Thus I used their model for planting our small scale garden ‘plot’ with mixed edibles. 

Another reason this is a nice method is because you can consider companion plants, natural pest deterrents, even pollinator attractants in the plantings. I modified the design slightly based on veggies that made it on our planting list.  

The small scale garden was planted pretty early in the season (for stuff like tomatoes, squash, and eggplant) so another thing this will provide is a comparison of how these crops do with an early planting vs. regular suggested time.  

A quick update on what’s been happening at the garden…

• We planted a small-scale garden a couple weeks ago.

• We finished building the raised beds, coated them with an eco-friendly stain, and filled them with dirt. So they’re ready for planting! 

• We planted the 2-tier raised bed in the center of the garden over the past two weeks.

• The children planted one raised bed with sunflowers (so far).  

• We moved the dirt pile. 

• Irrigation is nearly complete as we connect to the city water system.  

Please come join in the progress, gardening is fun!

 

 

A lot if you hold a garden egg hunt.  Yesterday, April 12, kids hunted for eggs around Heritage park and found seeds hidden in some of them (and candy too!, of course).  One of the main seeds they found were Petaluma Gold Rush beans.  A variety that Soil&Water has been asked to grow for the Silicon Valley Grows seed bank.  
Silicon Valley Grows has an annual project where gardeners in the community all grow the same seed.  The 2018 project is the Petaluma Gold Rush bean and we are excited to participate in growing some this season.  We’ll get to try them out and save seeds for the seed bank.  In fact, they may be available next year through the Mountain View public library’s free seed library.  If you don’t know about this great resource, the public library has a seed library where you can go and take seeds for your personal use for free.