Best Looking Lettuce I Have Ever Seen

onions, summer squash, Swiss chard, lettuce, cabbage

Summer squash is a general term for more than 70 different varieties of fast-growing, tender-skinned. soft fleshed. bland tasting squash.  Zucchini is by far the most famous ( or is it infamous?) of all the summer squash.  Some other types are yelllow squash-either straight or crookneck- and scallops (also called patty pans.

Summer squash are easy to grow by direct seeding after the soil is warm and danger of frost is past.  Plant seeds 1/2 deep every 6-12 inches, thinning to a final spacing of 18 inches from bush plants and 2-3 feet for vining plants.  Squash seeds are susceptible to rotting in cool wet soils: minimum germination temperatures are 60 degrees: ideal is 70 degrees.

For earlier crop start seeds indoors in individual pots, 3-4 weeks before setting out.  Black plastic mulch and row covers are well suited for growing summer squash.

Pick summer squash while seeds are young and tender.  Seeds and skin can both be eaten at this stage.  Under ideal growing conditions, summer squash needs to be picked every 2-3 days to keep them from getting big.  There will be good ones tomorrow.

All summer squash can be interchangeably in recipes.  Preferences are due to color, size, and shape rather than flavor.

Because of their bland flavor, summer squash leads themselves to many different cooking appliances, taking on the flavor.  or of whatever they are cooked with.  Try using them as a substitute for rice, pasta, and potatoes.  Young, tender summer squash are excellent raw with dips or in salads.  They are also delicious steamed, fried, sauteed, stuffed or baked into breads.  Squash flowers are edible too.

As a testament to their extreme versatility, I suspect that there have been more recipes inspired by zucchini than by any other vegetable.

Summer squash provides vitamin A and C as well as folate.  It can be kept in the refrigerator for 7-10 days without refrigeration.  they cannot be winter stored.

Yield:  1 pound of summer squash = 4 cups sliced or diced.

1 bushel =40 pounds = 32-40 pints

These were gone when I came back from a 3 hours CPR class sot hey must be the best cookies ever!

FYI: Rue is sending an email to each customer that contains the newsletter.  This week he says that the farm has seen lots of sunshine and moisture is making things grow by leaps and bounds.  Bell peppers should be coming up in the boxes next week.