Yellow Zucchini - the gold standard for home gardens

The spring is being very kind so far. The Weather is cool and we have gotten several nice rain showers. My home garden is doing very well. I am afraid I have planted too many zucchini plants though. I can think of few vegetables as prolific as zucchini. Once the plant is established and bearing it can flood you with produce. Fortunately, zucchini is a favorite of vegetarians and many recipes have been contrived to use up their bounty. Still, I have to confess that zucchini is not my favorite. I much prefer yellow crookneck squash.

I always assumed it was a matter of taste. But recently, I have begun to wonder if like in so many other cases taste is not strongly influenced by color. You see humans have strong attractions to some colors as attractive and others as unappealing. Mind you, I do not have anything against green vegetables. But zucchini tends to have that grey tinge and yellow squash is just what I grew up eating and so it defines appetizing for me. I know this association to be true because I can also eat the white Petti Pan squash and it is a strange shade of white and shaped like a scalloped flying saucer. Yet it is appealing to me because I ate it as a child from my mother’s garden.

Well, be that as it may. The good news is this. They have bred a variety of zucchini that has all the prolific vigor of the traditional ones but with a beautiful golden yellow skin. Turns out it has been around since the 1970s but it’s still a great new idea to me. If for nothing other than variety, next year I am going to plant half my crop in the golden variety.

Color may not be an issue with you, but I would definitely recommend any one with a home garden and an eye to self reliance to plant a goodly amount of zucchini of some sort. Nothing is so reliable and so abundant. Recipes abound for fried zucchini, zucchini bread and muffins and it makes a mean lasagna also. Simple living and zucchini are best friends and I have a brand new golden one to look forward to next year.