I have little experience, my thumbs are not green, and normally here what doesn’t rot because it has rained so much the yard has turned into a swamp gets eaten by slugs (there are so many, a pileup on the autobahn can cause a pileup (or, well, an accident that totals a car) on the autobahn).  So when a packet of zucchini seeds came into my possession sometime in late March or early April, I planted not one, nor two, but seven or eight seeds.  Out of the plants that sprouted, four survived to be transplanted into the garden and all I can say now thank goodness the slugs immediately razed two of the plants to stumps that have never produced so much as another leaf.  Because two thriving zucchini plants is one and three quarters of a thriving zucchini plant too many.  It’s only August 2 and before this freakishly warm, dry, and sunny summer is over, I am going to die of zucchini toxicity.

I have learned what nearly 200 years’s worth of home gardeners have learned before me:  two zucchini plants will reliably deliver a total of 1-2 lbs of zucchini a day every day for MONTHS.

I don’t even particularly like zucchini, but I cannot bring myself to toss them straight onto the compost pile.  We have been eating stir-fried zucchini, zucchini omelets, zucchini charred with runner beans, and way more ratatouille than is humane.  I have been driven to zoodles (or, rather, hand cut zlinguini because I refuse to go out and buy a spiralizer), zucchini pizza crust, and zucchini smoothies (which are edible, but then, so are cold, leftover, unsalted French fries).

My neighbors have started crossing the street to avoid meeting me, thereby avoiding the risk of being gifted (again) with zucchinis.  Even the chickens who normally fight over anything greener and juicier than dried chicken feed corn are like, “NO, LADY.  NO MORE ZUCCHINI OR WE’LL REPORT YOU TO THE SPCA.”  Even what few slugs remain, clinging to life in the uncharacteristically dry garden, are totally over the fruits of my zucchini plants’ labors (as opposed to being totally all over them).

I’d make zucchini bread (because that is the best way to eat zucchinis) except that I’d feel compelled to eat it and these days wheat gives me puffy eyes, a puffy throat, asthma, and dandruff and makes me snore so badly I wake myself up in the middle of the night.  Also 1-2 lbs of zucchini a day = 6 loaves of zucchini bread a day.

I’ve even reached the point where I am considering pickling them even though, ew, pickled zucchinis?? and even though for me pickling is more of a fungal culturing method than it is a means of preserving food to get you through the long, dark, cold, otherwise phytochemical-free winter (jk- we do have grocery stores here).

The moral of the story here clearly is: unless you live in some sort of commune, preferably with 50 to 100 other people, do not ever plant more than one zucchini plant in your garden.