Freezing Zucchini and a Recipe for Lemon Rosemary Zucchini Bread

Lemon zest and fresh rosemary add a flavorful twist to zucchini bread (recipe here).

Tired of eating zucchini? Try freezing some for later. One of the most popular posts on Farmgirl Fare right now is How To Freeze Zucchini and Summer Squash & My One Claim To Fame. (The claim to fame is that I'm the only serious gardener on the planet who never has a zucchini glut. I've been buying zucchini at the supermarket.) Zucchini and other summer squash are easy to freeze, and you'll be so glad you saved some come winter.

Tired of the same old zucchini bread recipes? Try this scrumptious, just-sweet-enough Lemon Rosemary Zucchini Bread instead. The recipe makes two loaves, so you can eat one now and freeze the other one. I love it toasted and slathered with butter for breakfast.

Or try my 100% Whole Wheat Coconut Zucchini Bread, a healthy, tasty treat made with unsweetened coconut, coconut oil, and less sugar than many zucchini bread recipes.

Hungry for more than zucchini? You'll find links to all my sweet and savory Less Fuss, More Flavor recipes in the Farmgirl Fare Recipe Index.

© FarmgirlFare.com, grateful for all of the other glorious bounty the kitchen garden does provide, but still looking forward to someday actually being sick of eating homegrown zucchini.

Growing Miniature White Cucumbers from Seed in Fall? Maybe.

You can read more about growing these cute little crunchy cucumbers in my previous post, Easy to Grow from Seed Favorites: Miniature White Cucumbers.

Realization of the Day:

This is shaping up to be the year of experimental fall planting.

I generally have pretty good luck growing cucumbers. Between my own harvests (lemon cucumbers are another favorite or mine to grow) and the excess bounty purchased from my Amish friends, I haven't bought a supermarket cucumber in years.

This past spring I started three varieties of cucumber seeds in flats, and for various reasons (the main one being that I probably didn't plant the seeds deep enough and they washed away when I watered them—yeah, duh) I didn't end up with any cucumber plants. Then, again for various reasons, I never got around to starting any more cucumber seeds directly in the ground once the soil had warmed up.

Thankfully some other gardeners around here fared better than I did in the cucumber department, and I was able to buy some nice ones (along with some really bitter ones). But because of the heat and drought (which is what made those bitter ones bitter), the local front yard pop-up produce stands closed down almost as soon as they opened up this year.

Fast forward a couple of months to a desperate me, trying to work on some new summer recipes. I finally broke down and bought some supermarket cucumbers. Blech.

I've already direct seeded two of my 4'x8' raised beds with cool season crops—something I've never done as early as August before—and on a whim, I also stuck half a dozen miniature white cucumber seeds into a bare spot in the homemade greenhouse. A couple of days later, four of them sprouted.

More below. . .