NEWS FROM MARIQUITA: A CSA Journal

The Complete Zucchini Management Guide
Andy has a six point plan for making sure his CSA customers don't get overwhelmed by summer squash. If that doesn't work, he may have to get a pig. They're easy to please.

By Andy Griffin

This squash won't be going to the pigs. It's destined to be harvestable in just a few short weeks.

June 2, 2005: One of my chores as a kid was to pick all the overgrown, baseball-bat-sized zucchinis and break them over the corral fence for the pigs to eat. When the hogs would see me coming they’d squeal with an urgency that makes a car alarm sound like a lullaby. I remember one old boar, Roger, who’d fight his way through the pack of swine to seize the biggest squash in his jaws. Roger would chew up zucchini faster than he could swallow and I vividly remember masticated squash extruding from the old pig’s nose.

Big zucchinis were fine for Roger but those of us who grow summer squash can’t expect the same level of enthusiasm from our customers. Farmers who run community supported agriculture programs have to be especially sensitive about not over-supplying our trusting harvest share holders with squash. I remind myself that the folks who get my harvest box every week are not only receiving my vegetables; by mid summer many a shame faced but well meaning gardener can be seen leaving an unbidden shopping bag with an eight pound zucchini on their neighbors’ doorsteps at dawn as though it were a baby Moses in a basket.. To avoid overexposing my farm’s shareholders to the charms of Cucurbita pepo I’ve developed a six-point strategy:

1. I don’t plant enough squash to give every shareholder a bag every week. Instead, I plant only enough squash so that each shareholder will get a bag of every other week. I pick all the squash in the patch and divide them up among half the shareholders one week and then among the other half the following week. That way the whole patch gets picked but people don’t receive so much squash it starts piling up in their refrigerators.

2. I don’t plant the varieties of summer squash that yield the most prolifically; my customers can buy those varieties in the supermarket. Instead, I rely on old fashioned types like Costata Romanesco or Ronde du Nice that offer something special like extra firm texture or an interesting shape to add interest. Costata Romanesco is the variety overwhelmingly preferred by my restaurant accounts because of its flavor and cooking qualities and it doesn’t get pithy even when it gets larger. Ronde du Nice is round and lends itself well to stuffing. An added attraction to many old fashioned squash types is that they sport a high percentage of male blossoms which can be harvested for sale to restaurants.

CSA members love basil and it helps spice up those tired old zucchinis that just keep coming.

3. I plant lots of herbs. Giving customers a wide range of summer squash types in varying decorator colors and novelty shapes is fine for the eye but squash all taste more or less the same. By giving our share-box holders a different herb each week we can teach them how to use the summer squash’s bland, pliant nature to advantage. Squash with dill tastes really different than squash prepared with mint, basil, sage, thyme, marjoram, savory or oregano. Just to keep things interesting we grow seven types of basil.

4. I take big, bloater zucchinis to the farmers market. Over the years I’ve noticed that cook books and cooking shows have inculcated the public with the cult of eating babies. A tiny squash is “extra fancy” while a zaftig, more “Rubenesque” zucchini is scorned like a fat Elvis. But some cultures resist the infantilization of the squash harvest. I’ve met emigre Englishmen, for example, who crave the taste of “stuffed vegetable marrow”. “Vegetable marrow” is only Queen’s English for over grown zucchini. Ethnic Italians have been known to stuff big zucchinis, too.

5. I count on my wife, Julia, to put lots of different recipes for squash in our CSA newsletter. Cucurbita pepo may have originated in the Americas but it has been adopted by just about every cuisine on earth. Julia is assembling a comprehensive and trial-tested online recipe list that our highly wired customers can access at any time if they want solutions to vexing squash problems. She has solicited recipes from the customers, too, so we access creations beyond the sphere of our own experience.

6. Lastly, I’m thinking about getting a pig. I get tired of hearing my children whine when they see squash on the dinner table. I’m nostalgic for those times in my youth when I could serve squash to swine that never complained and, instead, squealed in delight. Those pigs made me feel like a great chef must when he gazes out from the kitchen across a room full of satisfied customers.