Don’t look now, it’s the invasion of the GIANT…

Well, you guessed it, zucchini. They were so well hidden under the large leaves of the spreading zucchini plant. I didn’t see them and then, whoa, there were six of them, all the size of fat baseball bats. My little grand nephew, Dylan, with his sharp 6 year-old eyes, spotted them. “Aunt Diane, I see another one”, he kept saying.

We hauled them to the house and I’m contemplating them–hmmm, zucchini bread, zucchini muffins, stuffed zucchini, baked zucchini…

When my daughters were little and I was just a beginning gardener, we went off on vacation and came home to these behemoth invaders of our garden. I tried so many different ways to cook the monsters up that my oldest, Michelle, would poke at the dish in front of her, look up and inquire ‘Is there zucchini in this?’ If so, she wanted nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Well, there’s always the chickens and the deer to feed.

On the other hand, I relish the bounty of tomatoes. The ones on the table next to their green neighbors were picked in about 5 minutes, and I do that daily. We’re loving their lusciousness, cut up with fresh ground pepper and sea salt on them, so full of vitamins and minerals.

I was thinking just what a good investment a garden is. Think about it. A tomato plant costs about three dollars, or less. With good soil, water and sun, it will produce for you so may pounds of tomatoes that taste best when picked ripe and red, just before eating. The ones in the store can’t be shipped that ripe, they will rot in the meantime, so you can’t get the same flavor and freshness from the store bought ones.

At my local organic store, the heirloom ones cost $5.19 per pound and the other ones priced out at $3.29. So fifty pounds of tomatoes from your plant that cost you $3, come back at over a $200 return for your time and effort. (We’re eating heirloom and other ones.) Not to mention how much better they taste and the supreme satisfaction of eating something that you grew yourself.

I love to garden and love to harvest what I’ve grown. Fall is such an amazing time. Right now, we have three kids of figs, plums, tomatoes, pumpkins, squash, eggplants, basil, parsley, not to mention apple trees bulging with bright red apples ready to pick.

More soon about the apples. I’m asking them to hold on a few more days while I deal with these tomatoes and zucchini…