Light zucchini, dark zucchini, round zucchini… all zucchini are actually organic fruits and not organic vegetables.
This is their season!!
Most of my mornings begin by picking organic vegetables – actually also organic fruits and, in this season, most prominent in the garden are the carpets of zucchinis, with big leaves spread like open palms to the sky trying to absorb the maximum heat and light, and decorated with striking orange blossoms. How beautiful are these organic fruits.
When the heat is highest, the zucchini try to keep the surface of their leaves turned away from the sun so as not to be damaged, and they look ragged and wilted … But again in the morning, they will face the sky like a lovely carpet! Organic fruits and vegetables know what is best for them.
Before I started to write today, I checked what I wrote to you about organic zucchini in the past and I noticed that this is truly their month. Of all the organic vegetables, the zucchini represent the end of winter, the spring, and the beginning of summer; each time I wrote to you about zucchini, it was in this season.
Globes also wrote about us and zucchinis in this season.
Within the gourd family, the zucchini is the first to ripen. The zucchini season begins when its still cool to avoid diseases, pests, and other damage caused by the summer heat. Because zucchini grows so quickly, we plant it in cycles and seedlings are waiting to go into the ground today!!
Zucchini, Cucurbita pepo, is actually a young gourd (the official name in Hebrew is ‘dla’at hakishu’) that we eat in its immature state . This is OK and even excellent! Just like a cucumber (a member of the same family), we like to eat zucchini when it is young, about 7-10 days after flowering. At this stage, it is still physiologically unripe, i.e., the fruit has not yet developed the large seeds that are strong enough and prepared to begin the next generation of the plant. At this stage, the fruit is immature. Zucchini can be eaten fresh and raw, like cucumber, as in salads in Thailand, with yogurt in tsaziki in Greece….
In an earlier newsletter, I wrote about squash, cucumber, and melon fertilization .
These crops are very similar in growth and use, and there is confusion in their Hebrew names (I’ll write about this, shortly).
Zucchini originated in America and is one of three American sisters, along with corn and beans, that are now gradually joining our weekly seasonal organic vegetable boxes.
Zucchini was brought from America to Europe by Columbus and it came from there to us in the Middle East.
But how can this be? In their wanderings on their way to Israel, the Children of Israel remembered "the fish that we were wont to eat in Egypt… the cucumber ('kishu’ in Hebrew), and the watermelons…but now there is nothing at all; we have nought save this manna to look to… " (Numbers 11:5).
The cucumber has been grown in Egypt for 3,000 years and until about 100 years when Hebrew speakers said ‘kishu’, they meant cucumber! The Hebrew author Y.D. Berkowitz wrote in a story from 1909: "And if you yearn for a pickled ‘kishu’ – get up and open the big drum that stands in the hallway". Zucchini pickles?! Not common but I've made them, and they’re great!
The word cucumber in Greek is composed of two words: ’melo’ and ’fefon’ which, together, mean something like ‘apple pumpkin’ – which is actually a melon!!! Which is also a gourd :).
The Arabic word for zucchini is ‘kusa’. Probably, some 100 years ago, Hebrew speaking farmers began to cultivate the Land and because ‘kusa’ sounds similar to ‘kishu’, we nowadays call zucchini a cucumber…. did I confuse you? Did I make an organic fruit salad?
Whatever member of the gourd family – zucchinis, or cucumbers, or even melons – there is no doubt that it is now gourd season. These juicy fruits, young and green or yellow, provide us a variety of good nutrients throughout thesummer: they are low in calorific value, have zero cholesterol, and are rich in dietary fiber, antioxidants, folic acid, potassium, vitamin A, vitamin C, and some of the vitamin B complex. In addition, they provide an important intracellular electrolyte!
We wish a comfortably warm :), juicy, tasty, colorful, and beautiful week.
To your health!
Yours,
Maggie, Tal, and the Garden staff
We expect in this weeks organic vegetable baskets (draft only):
Round zucchini
Swiss Chard
Lettuce
Carrots
Leeks
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Cabbage
Orange beets
In the larger ones also:
New Zealand spinach
Green onions
Celery
And radish
Organic fruit baskets;
Melon
Nectarines
Larger ones also:
Cherries
Grapefruit
and Apricots
