This year — drum roll please — Marc and I harvested the first zucchini big enough to eat.
We made Zucchini and Eggs with onion and garlic and oil.
It was delicious and represented years of moaning, groaning and cussing.
We kept planting zucchini seeds and plants from the nursery. We made hills. We used expensive soil. We watered.
Some years I let Marc water and the plants turned yellow and shriveled.
Other years we didn't know what happened.
One year I declared war on the earwigs as I watched them eat the leaves.
This year I told Marc to leave the zucchini alone, no watering it, no talking to it, no checking it daily to see if it was alive.
I rejoiced the day we found an actual vegetable where there had previously been a big yellow flower.
I worried when the one we were celebrating started to curl up.
I became angry with it and told it to shape up.
I pruned off the sickly.
I paced.
Then yesterday, two of the babies became full-grown fruit of the vine.
We plucked them, washed them and sauted them.
(I have a recipe from a friend who used to bring me some of her garden bounty along with the recipe.)
I dug it out and Marc chopped.
We still don't understand our garden. We kind of get whatever we are lucky enough to keep alive. We can always grow a few peas and our herbs do well.
Marc finally has a single peony plant.
We are still battling the water wars though we've sort of declared a truce.
(Marc thinks more water is always the answer. I'm convinced that drowning a plant that had been forgotten the day before is a mistake.)
We realize high heat is bad and so is poor soil.
We believe in weeding and feeding but even with the odd success, we'll never be on the list of gardens that people should come and see.
But for today, for now, we're pretty happy and surprised.
If you want the recipe, we'll share.
Just be aware, it may take 30 years to grow the main ingredient.
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