I swear I\u2019ll go mad if anyone offers me any more of them. I can\u2019t go to supper with friends or meet up with family without someone trying to offload them onto me. I\u2019m taking about courgettes. And also rain-soaked beans (French, broad or runner) and soggy spinach \u2013 in fact all homegrown green things \u2013 but it\u2019s mostly courgettes. I have had complete strangers knock on my door and try to throw them at me for free. I shrink back in horror and try to close the door, but they leave them on my doorstep. Instead of a nice bottle of wine or box of chocs, dinner guests now even bring me their courgettes in plastic bags. \u201cJust thought you might like some lovely fresh veg from our garden\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Aaagh! No I would not! My own garden is already overrun with the stuff. Of course, I partly blame my good friend Fergus Dowding of the MV magazine (our celebrated \u2018King of Veg\u2019) whose monthly articles of wisdom persuaded me to set up my own vegetable plot in the first place. I also blame the sunny spring followed by our appallingly wet summer \u2013 damp and depressing conditions for humans, but obviously wonderful for plant life. Everything\u2019s growing. Thistles are blossoming like Triffids while 5 foot nettles spring out from behind hedges and attack passing children. The grass on our lawn may look nice and verdant, but it needs cutting every couple of days.<\/p>\n
Moan, moan\u2026 Of course, I should be so lucky. I should thank the Powers That Be for soaking my summer holidays and then awarding me a consolation prize of a lifetime\u2019s supply of green stuff. Who needs a barbeque on the beach when you can have free beans and peas by the ton? You may have had 30 degrees in sunny Spain, but I will be eating spinach till Christmas. Literally.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s the humble courgette which has become the most prolific of these green invaders. I\u2019ve got them coming out of my ears, my mouth and nearly everywhere else. I\u2019ve tried them steamed in sections, boiled in batons, curried in quarters, flat fried, grilled, baked in the oven and pounded into zucchini soup. You can\u2019t even freeze them successfully, so I use them as doorstops, paperweights and cricket bats. They float (just about) so I could sell them as biodegradable buoyancy aids. I\u2019ve even thought about using them for treasure hunts or games as in \u2018Hunt the Courgette\u2019? Maybe\u2026 but given their current all too common availability, any incentive to win the game is removed. I\u2019d rather play \u2018Lose the Courgette\u201d.<\/p>\n
Poor things. I am launching a charity to help these piles of sad, unwanted courgettes: \u201cDon\u2019t be a Meanie – Adopt a Zucchini\u201d. I\u2019ll give them names to make them feel a bit better (Charlie, Camilla, Candice or Courtney). However, if I miss one, it becomes a vast marrow within seemingly only a few hours and will either need to be scooped out to make a lantern or thick sliced to make tablemats. I\u2019m even thinking of painting some of them to try and pass them off to friends as sausages.<\/p>\n
I am desperate to try and constructively use up all this bounteous harvest before it rots into a congealed biomass and becomes recycled as tractor fuel. French beans are small and narrow enough to be dried and used as \u2018Pickup-Sticks\u2019 or long toothpicks and I\u2019m told that the silk smooth inner skin of broad bean pods is excellent for rubbing on dry skin and verrucas. Broad beans themselves could become fashionable jewellery items if dried and painted either as necklaces or \u2018eco-earrings\u2019. Raw runner beans might also become original bookmarks and conversation points. Your next mobile phone case may well be made from \u2018pure, natural spinach leaves\u2019. Not only is this extremely marketable and highly friendly to the environment, it can also be gently chewed (with or without a light balsamic dressing) if you chat for too long on the phone to your mum and get a bit peckish.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, it\u2019s back to my courgettes. Do you know? I was in the local supermarket today and there, on a shelf, were packs and packs of courgettes for sale – hundreds of them! Why have they done this? Why have Messrs. Morrisons and Waitrose ordered up even more commercial bulk of the things from farms as far away as Norfolk or Northampton? Don\u2019t they know that I can supply the entire country just by myself from here in West Dorset? And you know the thing that\u2019s even more puzzling to me? Why did I grow them in the first place? I don\u2019t even really like them\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I swear I\u2019ll go mad if anyone offers me any more of them. I can\u2019t go to supper with friends or meet up with family without someone trying to offload them onto me. I\u2019m taking about courgettes. And also rain-soaked beans (French, broad or runner) and soggy spinach \u2013 in fact all homegrown green things […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-laterally-speaking","tag-humphrey-walwyn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}