A story of life, love, sickness, murder, death and new life

Last year, I tried growing food for the first time.  I went to Target and looked in the $1 aisle right at the front of the store and they had these strawberry and tomato grow kits.  There were seeds, dirt pellets and tiny little pots to start your plants in.  Here is where I talked about my adventures last year.

This year, though, this year is different. We have an urban farm team at our church and they had seed starter kits and leftover seeds that they were just giving away. So I totally took some.  I am growing zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peppers, oregano and basil.  Below, you will find a zucchini-filled story of love, heartache and hope.

Here are my zukes nine days after being planted.  If you have ever used a seed starter kit before, you can probably tell I am a beginner. Even though the kit had dirt pellets, I thought I was supposed to add more.  So I did.  Turns out I didn't need to do that, but it didn't hurt anything.  I just wasted some of my dirt.  But that's not the point of the photo.  The point is:  Look!  A lil tiny baby zucchini plant!  Yay!

Here they are at 15 days.  You can't know how proud I was of these little guys.  And I can't tell you how much time I spent just staring at them, because I don't know.  A lot.

Day 25. They are so big.  I am so proud.  At this point, I have NO IDEA that these little guys aren't very big at all.  This ain't nuthin'.

I moved them to the yard on day 39.  They are looking sorta sad.  I waited too long to move them.  I was so afraid they would die.  That my love for them would go unfulfilled.  That I would have my heartbroken.  And that they would die because of my ignorance and negligence.

But they didn't die.  They were just fine.  And they grew!  Here they are at day 58!

They are as big as Autumn!

Look at that!  It's a flower!  Yay!  My first blooming male flower, on day 60.

Hello, little man.

Here are two flowers, one male and one female, getting ready to bloom on day 66.  The male flower is the one with the long, skinny stem and the female flower has the shorter, fatter stem.  That short and fat stem is really a baby zucchini!  Once the flower gets fertilized, the stem will grow into a big zucchini!

Day 69.  How appropriate.  Today is the day this little guy finds love.

He's gonna make a baby with this fine lady.

With zukes, size DOES matter.  Here's a big ol' girl flower next to a little boy flower.  But it's okay, he's got what it takes.

Basically, I don't trust nature.  So rather than let the bees take care of this particular episode of "The Birds and The Bees," I take matters into my own hands.  Here I am collecting the male sample. 

See?

And here I am depositing them in the girl flower.  In case you were wondering, this sort of artificial insemination is not messy and does not require the use of gloves.  I did feel a little dirty, though.

Wow!  You guys are getting really big.  I had no idea.  My zukes at day 71.

Well what do we have here?  A zucchini!  Are you ready to get picked?

Almost 8 inches.  Perfect.

Come here, you.

Yes, I think you'll do nicely.

Homegrown zucchini, all sliced up.

Into the skillet with some olive oil.

Add some chicken and spaghetti sauce.

Served with homemade pasta and Parmesan cheese.

This is my second zucchini.  Do you see how little it is at the left end?  That's because it was only partially fertilized.  That's what I get for letting nature take it's course.

But I just cut off the little end and used the rest of this very large zuke.

I shredded my zucchini.  And shredded and shredded.  And took a break and shredded some more.

And got two cups of zucchini from it.

I made two loaves of zucchini bread with this, but I didn't get any pictures before it all got eaten.  Sorry.  You'll just have to use your imagination.

One day, I went outside and my plants looked like this.  I thought they just weren't getting enough water since it hadn't rained in a while, so I watered and watered them.  And I noticed that at night, they perked back up and looked just fine.  That made me feel a little better.

But then I noticed that the stems looked like this.  Sorta mushy and rotten.  That couldn't be good.  So I did some research and found out about the squash vine borer moth.  From hell.

I ripped open one of the plants.

There it is.  The squash vine borer larva. (click to enlarge, if you wanna, but you may not)

You are evil and you must be destroyed.

Yes, you.

Even though I had mixed feelings about killing all those slugs, I felt no mercy or remorse about killing these evil things.  Actually, I felt a little better doing it.  With a few of them, I used a small rock and squished them. But then I got grossed out when I could feel their squishy bodies giving way under the pressure of the rock.  With others, I just dropped a brick on them.  That worked just as well.  

I didn't kill all of them.  At least not directly.  But I did pull up all the plants and put them in garbage bags and put them out with the trash.  I was mad.  And I was sad.

But I didn't give up!  The next day, I planted new zucchini seeds.  Here they are, at day 6.

Look at those roots!  All the way to the bottom of the cup!  Already!  

These guys are awesome.  They are gonna make it.  I just know it.