The zucchini that wasn’t
Come on, I tell you, yes I can … tell the difference between a zucchini and a cucumber plant. At least, I thought I could. I happily purchased a zucchini plant, just the one, as I have a history of growing monster plants, and stuck it in front of the scarlet runner beans, thinking I’d train it to grow down the outside of the wooden vegetable box. Beans and zucchini like each other. Add in corn and you have the famed gardening combo of ‘Three Sisters’.
Corn and beans, along with zucchini (or other members of the squash family), form the trinity known as ‘The Three Sisters’ in southern American gardening lore. When beans and corn are grown together, the beans draw nitrogen from the soil, which the corn thrives on. Squash and pumpkin, with their prickly vines, are planted around the beans and corn to stop pesky wild animals destroying the plants. It’s a combination you might like to try in your own garden. Next year. It’s a tad late for corn right now. So, I was thinking, I’ve got two sisters rumbling away – beans and zucchini – but lo and behold the ‘zucchini’ plant was soon covered in small yellow flowers, not the lovely big yellow blooms I’d expected and planned on stuffing and frying, AND the first zucchini seemed verrrryyy long. It wasn’t a zucchini, it was a cucumber. It was quickly followed by another and another. Now I have a problem because my brother Pat tells me cucumbers like climbing up things. I recall his cucumber plant – by necessity growing in a glass house – stretching around the glass house and laden with cucumbers. The cucumber tendrils are attaching themselves to the bean plants. I’m not sure how this is going to end. Watch this space. Chilled cucumber soup anyone?
