Grow, My Pretties!

There is something incredibly satisfying about growing your own food. We had a thriving raspberry bush when I was a kid, but my dad didn't start his vegetable garden until I had long moved out and he had retired. When we were in our condo there was no opportunity for a garden either, so now that we are in our house, a garden seemed like a grand idea.

We planted yellow wax beans, turnips and carrots. A late addition,  with six remaining seeds from my dad's garden, was zucchini.

I love zucchini!  I have a great recipes for zucchini fries, and zucchini also goes well in baking,  so I sneak it in to muffins for Lacey.

The zucchini plants were some of the first in our garden to germinate. Five of the six seeds made it! 

Zucchini seedlings.

I didn't have the foresight to take any mid-growth photos, but it really seemed like this plant turned into a monster over night! 

Monster zucchini plant

The blossoms exploded on this plant. I was a bit worried, because there didn't seem to be any bees around. How would we get zucchinis if there were no flowers? 

Zucchini blossoms.

At one point, there were probably 40 blossoms on the plant. They were everywhere! 

And seriously, who knew that zucchini flowers were so beautiful? Not this girl!

And then one day, a zucchini appeared.

The start of a zucchini.

Just the thickening of a stem! But you could see it forming. And within a week, it was almost a full-blown squash.

Almost full-grown zucchini.

And then another formed, and another, and another. Overall, we've gotten about nine good-sized zucchinis from the plant. We've grilled them, and including them in baking.

I made sure to take a photo of our first full-grown zucchini. It's a beauty!

Our first zucchini.

We will definitely include zucchini in our garden next year, it was a definite success!