You don’t need a lot of plants to have a lot of zucchini. One plant can yield between three and 10 pounds of produce. Aug. 8 is “Sneak Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day,” an ode to a the summertime tradition of giving away excess garden produce. (Shutterstock / Tetiana Chernykova),
ACROSS AMERICA — Zucchini are the mice of the garden. They proliferate so fast, there’s no keeping up with them. Similar to how they may feel about the much-maligned rodent, many would-be beneficiaries are eager to squash their neighbor gardeners’ plots to offload the excess gourds.
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This is a real thing. There’s a not-so-real holiday built around summertime zucchini shenanigans. “National Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day” is Aug. 8. Its origin seems to lie in the cliché itself.
Why do people in small towns suddenly start locking their cars in August?
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So their neighbors won’t fill it with zucchini.
Call this time of year the zucchini apocalypse. Seriously, people show up at the homes of friends and relatives with bucketfuls of unsolicited zucchini. They do leave it without asking the recipients if they want it. Zucchini offloading is as Americana as it gets.
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Gardeners Net lists the top 10 signs you may have too much zucchini, including nightmares of being taunted by a humongous squash, a refusal by even field mice, which apparently love zucchini, to snack on the squash and the failed method of coating zucchini plants with sugar water to attract insects. Alas, “they won’t bite,” the site says.
Another sign? You leave excess zucchini in the neighbor’s mailbox. We told you this was the real deal. It’s also against the law. The U.S. Postal Service doesn’t specifically mention zucchini in its postal box restrictions, but the prohibition is implied.
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But it happens. “The lore of zucchini in your mailbox is true!” a Facebook user declared after finding three zucchini in her mailbox.
Creative uses for zucchini demonstrate the sheer desperation of gardeners to get rid of it. Some people turn zucchini into summer craft projects for their kids. Zucchini race cars are a thing, and so is the Boulder Creek (Colorado) Hometown Festival’s Great Zucchini Race. And what child of a gardener hasn’t whiled away summer hours making a fleet of zucchini boats? Making a boat is simple. Just scoop out the meat, attach a sail and launch the craft.
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Just Don’t Waste It
All levity aside, food insecurity is a vexing problem nationwide. Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization, estimates 48.8 million Americans, including 16 million children, don’t get enough nutritious food on a regular basis.
While your neighbors may not appreciate having the mother lode of zucchini dropped on their porch, try not to waste it. Taking the excess zucchini and other produce to a “little free food pantry” or connecting with an organization that does food rescue work can make a huge difference in someone’s life.
Anyone can donate excess food, in a variety of ways.
Related:
- Ending Food Waste: Start With These Nationwide, Regional Resources
- How To Stop Heaping On The 54M Tons Of Food Wasted Every Year In The U.S.
‘A Poor Excuse For A Cucumber’
Zucchini is the Rodney Dangerfield of vegetables — although, technically, zucchini is a fruit masquerading as a vegetable.
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A survey last year of more than 2,100 Americans by OnePoll on behalf of Bolthouse Farms found only 45 percent said they were likely to eat zucchini. It performed better than other types of squash (39 percent) and well ahead of Brussels sprouts (36 percent).
For the record, Americans were most likely (70 percent) to eat broccoli. Who saw that coming? Carrots came in second (69 percent) and spinach third (55 percent).
Someone on Reddit dismissed zucchini as “a poor excuse for a cucumber.”
“Have you heard of natural selection?” the person said. “Well, the zucchini is the opposite of that. It’s a piece of crap mutation that came out of the cucumber family.”
That’s true. Besides cucumbers, zucchini, mirliton and other squashes, the Cucurbits family also includes watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkins and other gourds.
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Someone else on Reddit compared zucchini to “dirty water.”
A zucchini champion stepped in and said people only think they hate zucchini because they’ve only had it cut into large rings and cooked with butter “until it was phlegmy and gross.”
Boats, ‘Zoodles’ And Ratatoullie
Zucchini does deserve better.
It’s a pretty perfect vegetable, a hydration heavyweight that is 94 percent water.
Zucchini is high in fiber and low in calories, with a large zucchini coming in at around 55 calories. These non-starchy, nutrient-dense vegetables are touted for potential anti-cancer benefits and are also associated with improved eye health and decreased joint inflammation.
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There’s no shortage of zucchini recipes — among them, zucchini stir fry, zucchini bread, zucchini minestrone and zucchini boats, not the type kids float in the pond, but the kind filled with taco or cavatelli ingredients and topped with cheese.
Zucchini ratatouille linguine sounds like a recipe Remy dreamed up (you had to see the movie). But it’s a thing. Zucchini can become “zoodles” with a spiralizer, mandoline or peeler — or even with a simple box grater.
Some people even call zucchini harvesting season “the most wonderful time of the year.”
Zucchini are practically canonized in verse, the word appearing in more than 300 songs. The “Green Zucchini: Storytime Song” and “Sesame Street: Veg Side Story,” in which the long, green gourd has a starring role, are kid-friendly. Erik Evermore goes in a different direction with his Led Zeppelin-inspired “The Zucchini Song,” which isn’t like that at all. Neither is “Tim Currey — The Zucchini Song,” as seen on “Saturday Night Live” on Dec. 5, 1981.
“The Zucchini Song” by — wait for it — The Zucchini Brothers, is breezy and fun. We’ll leave you with that.
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What’s your favorite way to cook zucchini? Tell us in the comments.
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