Spring Squash

We plant Black Beauty Zucchini and two types of yellow squash - straight neck and crookneck.  I like to plant them early to try to get out ahead of the squash borer.  That devilish critter burrows into the stem.  One day you have beautiful, productive squash plants and the next day you walk out to find your plants decimated.  Heat also plays a number on the squash plants and temperatures are already 80 degrees by 8am and in the 90's in the afternoon.  That heat causes my squash to wave the white flag and melt into the ground.  

Our squash harvest was exceptional this year.  Here's what they looked like exactly a month ago:

Beneath the canopy of squash leaves were numerous blooms and squash of all sizes.

Each and every day, we'd pick baskets of squash.  We ate it.  We brought baskets to church to give away.  We knocked on the neighbor's door and gave them a bag of squash.  We gave some to family members.  All that and we still have a refrigerator full.  Tricia talked today of making a squash casserole that we love and freezing it.

As with most things, we have favorite recipes we cook to use up the abundance.  Just yesterday, Tricia made a zucchini lasagna.  Sometimes she's made this and used zucchini sliced thin in place of lasagna noodles.  This time she put the sliced zucchini in addition to the noodles.  She hit it out of the park with that!  We've come to love zucchini cake.  It's a Bundt cake that is so sweet and moist.  You'd never know it had zucchini in it if we didn't tell you.

Well, all good things come to an end.  I noticed today with sadness that our squash plants have all died due to a combination of the squash borer and the heat.  It was good while it lasted...