Flowering edibles

A friend recently gave me a couple zucchini starts. Blast from the past – like 30 years past – when I started and was growing vining edibles on the edge of our back yard. And the parcel of land next to us got sold. And construction started. And the vining edibles got scraped up and plowed into the construction dirt pile. Ugghhh. Well, I reasoned, I am the only one in our family who likes zucchini anyway. The melon plants would have been nice though. Lemonade out of lemons, friends gave me some of their harvest many years. I purchased from the farmer’s market as well. And this year I tried again, and planted those little zucchini starts from my friend in a plant pot, just to see what happened. In a pot because that meets association bylaws. Which I can understand. But we did have one resident a few years back who grew corn. Not in pots. (LMBO!!!) And, as an aside, we have lived by corn fields, if not right on the edge of corn fields, for 32 years. My dream house is either on the edge of a corn field or on the edge of the woods, with a little brook, which we doggone near have at the little house up north, but I digress – widely. Back on topic 😉

The zucchini starts grew and yesterday a flower bloomed. A couple verses have come to mind. First was the Job verse (1:21) “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” But, as sad as it was that the landscape maintenance kid stepped on my Praying Hands hosta and smooshed it, stepped on and broke off two daylily plants, and trimmed shrubs that were coming up on flowering season, I hardly think that even remotely approaches Job. The next thing that came to mind was “When the Lord closes one door, somewhere he opens a window.” Sound of Music. I can fly with that. And indeed I did make that little angels singing sound when I saw the first flower on the zucchini plant. Free flowers, I thought! Yellow! Trumpet shaped when they open so maybe the pollinators will even enjoy them! And if I can get a tomato cage (my daughter-in-law had an extra one a month ago), I can even train it. Lord knows it may meet it’s untimely demise if I don’t do something to keep it from the weed whipping and spraying/blower maxing/don’t bother to look where you’re stomping jubilance.

The zucchini loves this corner spot. The spot the Patriot hosta didn’t like (way too sunny). The spot where I considered growing a few sunflowers – hahaha!

Yes those are forget-me-nots in the rock – that I keep well away from the lawn. Yes, those are marks from my favorite lawn chair – I don’t care. Look at that big healthy hosta next to that zucchini in a pot.

Grow little zucchini starts! Grow and prosper!