Today I have a very special treat to share with you. It comes from my garden.
Check it out. It’s a Really Big Zucchini.
Zoom and the Really Big Zucchini
Is that amazing or what?
We didn’t visit the garden for four days and this is what happened. A three inch zucchini grew to 19 inches! At its fattest point it’s 13.5 inches in circumference! It weighs just over five pounds! GC went to the grocery store to find out how much it’s worth, and at $1.79 a pound this is a $9.12 zucchini!
I googled big zucchinis to see if ours broke any records, but the record-setter was actually 13 times bigger. It was grown by Bernard Lavery, author of How to Grow Giant Vegetables. I couldn’t find a picture of his giant zucchini, but here he is with his marrow.
Bernard Lavery and his 109 pound marrow
But still. Our zucchini is a Really Big Zucchini.
So what do you do with a giant zucchini? You drive around town with it and flash it at other drivers and pedestrians. You let GC hoist it up over his head and parade around his neighbourhood. You bask in the glow of his neighbours’ astonishment and praise. And then you take it to your favourite seamstress and ask her to make you a zucchini bikini. Which, of course, she does without even batting an eye, because that’s the kind of person she is, which is why she’s your favourite seamstress in the first place.
Then you take 43 pictures of your Really Big Zucchini in its Zucchini Bikini, none of which do it justice.
Zucchini Bikini
Then you take a picture of it with your giant cat, for scale. But they kind of cancel out each other’s giantness, don’t they?
Giant Cat Meets Giant Zucchini
Then you blog about it, making a special point of thanking your loyal readers for warning you, two months ago, to plant only one zucchini plant. That was excellent advice. That one zucchini plant is taking over the world. I predict that by late August, it’ll be giving this zucchini plant a run for its money:
Giant Irish Zucchini Plant
Last but not least, you put your giant zucchini and its little bikini on Ebay.
EBay! If I’d known, I would have put straps around the back of the bra part. In fact, if you actually DO sell it, I should fix the top with straps, which would take about 2 minutes. So let me know.
If you don’t sell it, zucchini is really tasty sliced in 5/8 inch slices, oiled, with salt and pepper, and BBQed until you get grill marks. I’m not kidding!
You’re not going to eat it? That would be my first instinct.
Stuffed Zucchini – Cut the thing in half lengthwise, scoop out a good bunch of the pulp from the middle. Mix the pulp with some ground beef (or ground chicken or turkey or whatever you like), some bread crumbs, grated romano or parmesan cheese, an egg, some garlic and some parsley — salt & pepper to taste. Put on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and bake until done — 45 minutes to an hour.
OR You can just slice it in 1/2 inch rounds, marinated the slices in some olive, balsamic vinegar, garlic, basil, salt & pepper — in the fridge, covered for about 24 hours. Then stick em on the BBQ until browned.
Of course it may be all woody on the inside from having grown so fast because of the never-ending rain.
Julia, NOBODY knew. Not even me. But yes, we’ll send the zucchini back your way for a final fitting before sending her along to the highest bidder.
XUP – being eaten is for ordinary zucchinis. This is an extraordinary zucchini. Thanks for the recipe though – we’ll try it with some of her lesser brethren.
OR you could make a really big batch of zuchinni bread? (awesome vegetable by the way)
Wow, this was a well-needed laugh today! At least all this rain is good for something! Cheers to your Big Zucchini in a Bikini 😀
Hahaha, this made my day. 😛
My hair’s longer than yours.
I have sent you a photo of my giant zucchini. When Karen was a wee one she begged to have a real zucchini bathing suit. That is now our family’s forever more term for a two-piece swim costume.
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This is the funniest post ever, I’m pissing myself laughing!
Seeing that Duncan is that much bigger than the zuchinni disturbs me greatly.
I’m no longer absolutely certain I could take Duncan out, even in an unfair fight. But I’m still pretty sure I could beat the zook two falls outta three…
Wild! I only grew zucchini once – then we didn’t want to face them again.
Thanks for the bikini photos, very memorable.
You know, if you had stayed away from the garden for another week, it would have been even bigger…Our first year of “real” gardening we planted 8 zucchini plants. We began hiding from the backyard. It was full of giant zucchinis! Our neighbours hid from us, we always arrived with zucchini – lots of it. We had a freezer half full of grated zucchini, because zucchini bread is great – not that I’ve had any for years. I’m sort of over zucchini, except for occasionally buying little bitty ones for stir fries.
I never thought of dressing ’em up and selling them, though – that’s brilliant!
Where do you put the batteries?
I was disturbed by some of the other people’s items in the unusual section of EBAY…one is a last ditch attempt to get out of financial trouble…and, come on now, who buys penile enhancement items on EBAY. Are they slightly used and at a discount from the typical Junk Mail offerings?
Hello, just came across your blog via an earlier post of yours about Carlington while searching for info on that neightbourhood. Your zucchini looks great. Don’t sell it on Ebay! Keep it for yourself! I’ve discovered the joys of eating zucchini in the past few years… My 5 yr old loves it, so it has become one of our staples (he also likes brocolli, carrots and all kinds of veggies that most kids hate, so I count myself lucky). I chop or slice them and add them to pasta sauce, chicken curry or anything else. When he was a toddler just starting to eat real food, we discovered quite by chance that he liked zucchini sliced and stir-fried with turmeric, cumin and other Indian spices. So I would go to the supermarket and buy a huge bag full of zucchini, cook it and put it in the freezer in meal-sized bowls for him – a couple of times the cashier asked me what I was planning to do with so much zucchini and couldn’t believe me when I said I had a 3 yr old who actually liked curried zucchini!
Ebay? Seriously? (okay, I saw it there. But WHY?)
On another note… nice to see you’re getting around enough to take care of the garden and fiddle with squash garments. Is this a sign that either you have little pain or good meds?
I’m about to state the obvious here…but…Oh My Word! your cat is gigantic! WOW!
Oh and your zucchini is quite big too 😉
By the way, I really, really like your blog. One of, if not the, best blog I have seen.
Gwen, there are plenty more where that zucchini came from. And I keep googling zucchini recipes. GC found one yesterday for Pineapple-Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Reyl and James and Valerie, you guys made MY day.
Tom, I wasn’t going to post it because apparently I forgot to comb my hair that day. And it was a bad hair day (most are, these days). But it’s really much longer than it looks in that picture and I’m quite sure it’s longer than yours.
Grace, that’s a weird coincidence about the zucchini bikini. Anyway, I love your picture and I’m going to post it soon.
Coyote, I know, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! It’s for your own protection that I warn you against taking on Duncan. But the zucchini? I’m pretty sure you could take him, given that he’s in a vegetative state and all.
Lucy, good, I like to create lasting impressions. And Nancy? That’s funny. I can just see your neighbours all trying to scheudle their vacations to coincide with zucchini season.
Allan, ha ha, I was wondering if someone would make that connection. I can’t say it didn’t occur to me too.
Deb, I didn’t even look at my competition in the Ebay category. Used penile implants? Eww. You’d want to boil it first.
Lucy, welcome to my blog. Do you live in Carlington? That’s great your kid eats veggies. I used to give mine Twizzlers in the stroller because he looked so incredibly cute sitting in his stroller in his little Levi overalls and baseball cap, gumming a licorice stick. In retrospect, he probably would have looked just as cute gnawing on a zucchini.
Susan, WHY?? A spectacular zucchini deserves to be polyanthromorphized and immortalized on Ebay. It deserves to live on for all eternity, rather than simply be eaten like normal zucchinis. As for my health, well, here’s how I garden. We drive to the garden. I walk from the parking lot to our plot (1 minute). By that time it’s hurting. I have about three minutes to do what I have to do in the garden and get back to the car before the pain becomes unbearable. However, I’ve discovered that kneeling and squatting both provide some temporary pain relief from standing, and you can get away with those in a garden. (As opposed to walking down the street, where people look at you funny if you suddenly kneel down on the sidewalk.) (Unless you’re on Bank Street, where pretty much anything goes.)
Jen, thank you SO much! What a lovely thing to say.
Everybody: last I checked the Zucchini in the Bikini had three bids and was at $1.36. Bidding ends tomorrow around noon. Get your bids in now, just in case you forget to do it tomorrow!
Damn that is one big zucchini! You could have a big BBQ and grill it or put in a big salad.
P.S. I love what you read at Blog out Loud, it was funny and sad. Great!
I thought you meant that you made clothing from a zuchinni because that is totally what a guy from Saskatchewan would do in fine Green melon/squash tradition. Watermelons get turned into Riders helmets for games sometimes.
And now I’m missing having zucchini in my garden this year, I didn’t have seeds handy when planting.
Or you can save it and enter the CHIN Television Festival Italiano/Johnny Lombardi show on City TV 15(Sundays at 11:30-2) Great Zuchinni contest held shortly. This is an annual feature and you would be amazed at the size of some of the products.
I have a whole garden full of 15,18 and 20 inch zucchinis right now. A week of rain and no time to harvest made my little babies turn gargantuan.
[…] giant produce with prizes awarded out annually. Hubby pointed out that Zoom should have entered the contest for largest, mutant zucchinis. Ah well, maybe next […]