Zoodles 101: How to make and cook zucchini noodles
Zucchini noodles or zoodles — it doesn’t matter what you call them. This ingenious, low-carb alternative to pasta is a great way to add more vegetables to your diet.
Zucchini is chock full of fiber, vitamin C, vitamin A and vitamin K, Abbie Gellman, chef and registered dietitian at the Institute of Culinary Education, told TODAY Food. And with only 19 calories and 3.5 grams of net carbs per cup, you can feel great about eating it to your heart’s content.
Eating zucchini in noodle form can also be a textural delight — but only if you do it right. If prepared incorrectly, it can be a slimy, soggy mess. Zucchini noodles are incredibly easy to make, and the more you try to complicate them, the higher chance you’ll run into issues. Here’s our complete zoodle guide, including dos and don’ts, various cooking methods and sauce ideas.
https://www.today.com/food/zoodles-101-how-make-cook-zucchini-noodles-t191607
What I can't figure out is how they are getting in. I had the same problem last year and their dead bodies are all in the same location on the floor. I'm thinking they're coming in thru the dryer vent where I've sprayed and then dying soon after.
I sort of thought zucchini was idiot proof: you plant it and soon there are zucchini’s the size of baseball bats. But ours seems pretty slow. There are some flowers but no vegetables yet. The raised garden doesn’t get many hours of direct sun bc it is near a steep hillside and some trees. Also we are having overcast skies. I hope it will get going as July warms up and clears up. (Coastal CA. Summer is really more like late July through early October).
Just a Pro Tip I’ve learned... in the previous two years 100% of my strawberry plants have died early in the season no matter what the light, temperature, soil or amount of watering. It turns out it must have been the chlorine in the tap water. This year I’ve been letting the water sit in an open container for 24 hours to let the chlorine break down before using it. All but one plant is still alive this year.
In other good news... the first tomato of the year! A 10.8oz Ace 55.
I woke up thinking it was Sunday - thank you for straightening me out with the Garden Thread on SATURDAY.
My SIL & I have given up on squash because we just cannot deal with squashbugs. We must be the center of Squashbugville. We’ve both tried just about everything, but they always end up winning.
I read somewhere that squash bugs come in “waves” ... the spring wave is the worst & if you grow squash later in the year (summer vs spring), you don’t get as many. If I had some squash seed, maybe I’d try it ... maybe. I AM seeing some squash bugs here and there in the garden now - not enough to worry about them.
Supposed to be a rainy day today - garden looked happy when I walked by it to feed the dog & chicklets. I planted a new bed of zinnias Thursday night - nothing showing yet, but they’ll be up in no time. On my current bed of zinnias, I’m having to cut blooms as soon as I see petals missing - the finches love zinnia seeds & will pick a bloom clean in no time. I save/dry blooms for seed for the next year so it’s a race to beat the birds to the seeds (particularly on blooms I especially love). I planted some sunflower seeds on a Monday & they were coming up by Friday! We have one big volunteer sunflower & the goldfinches are already working on the first seed head. The new seedlings are a ‘giant’ variety & the seed heads should be mature in the fall - the birds will love it.
Speaking of birds .... we have a young hawk who is driving us crazy. Evidently, he/she has been kicked out by mom/pop and is on its own. It has been “screaming” almost non-stop for 2 days (seriously - non-stop!) and while it has toned down, I heard it last evening, sounding off. It likes to hang out next door .... we think it has spotted the chicklets. There are a ton of squirrels around here so while they’re not easy prey, the hawk could spend its time more productively hunting than screaming.
Mini me
I tried zucchini in a tall-ish raised bed and had beautiful plants and blossoms...but all of the fruit had blossom end rot over and over, so I tore them out. Dries out too fast, I guess.
August 8 is Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Into Your Neighbor’s Porch Day
https://nationaldaycalendar.com/national-sneak-some-zucchini-into-your-neighbors-porch-day-august-8/
100F high today; back to 96.
The garden was very happy that I was able to thoroughly irritate it: the system works...except I need to get a new nozzle for one of the hoses.
Next step is to plant stakes, and string twine for the pole beans
CHOOSE A SIDE AND CLICK ON IT!
Septic company dug test holes with the backhoe yesterday.
Going to need an aerobic septic system.....hit solid rock 2 feet down where the tank was going to be.
Dug a few test holes further down the land near where my garden is going to be....2.5 feet down hit solid rock. Extremly dry red dirt above it.
The further we got from the tank the less caliche we had which is what I thought from. The little bit of probing I did.
I think trenching 1 foot of soil on either side of the raised bed, onto the raised bed area to make the raised bed 4 feet deep will be enough to start with.
I have a metric ton of dead of dead oak branches which I will be chipping up for mulch and of course creating compost.
I am hoping to have solid soil in 5 years and about 2000 Sqft of raised beds and of course potted veggies too.
Does diphacinone (common type of 1st Gen rat poison) in an animal that has ingested it and died underground or been buried, break down in soil, and if so, how quickly?
I attempted to research this online and about the only definitive info. I could find was that:
A) Diphacinone is metabolized fairly slowly in the body of living warm blooded creatures.
B) Critters with blood with clotting properties, and might consume the dead animal, can ingest enough “second hand” diphacinone to be harmed or killed.
C) Insects & worms that consume the dead animal may temporarily show elevated levels of diphacinone but do not seem to be harmed (they are not dependent on “our” type blood clotting mechanisms) and apparently pass diphacinone through without significantly metabolizing it.
D) “No info” on decomposition by fungus, bacteria, etc., consuming the dead animal. I found “no info” on decomposition / degradation of diphacinone by soil bacteria and such, either.
E) DDT is more persistent (2-15 years half-life) in the environment than diphacinone, but no further data or specifics regarding diphacinone persistence was given.
I have a raccoon in a paw (dog proof) trap. I’m pretty sure it ALSO consumed quite a bit of rat poison B4 encountering the trap. Will have to shoot the ‘coon, of course, but, instead of cooking it & feeding it to our chickens, burying it SEEMS the best bet? Trash pickup is 5 days away, temps will be in the 90’s - not a good option...
(DS) = Direct Seed | (TP) = TransPlant. Technically, I'm late on a few things that get started indoors and transplanted. I'm not doing all that.
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/growers-library/calculator-planting-dates-fall-harvest-crops.html - xlsx - Excel spreadsheet file
The garden has reached the stage that it's going to be difficult to keep up with production. Garlic has been harvested and hung in the potting shed to cure. Was a bumper crop this time. Enough to give half of it away and still last us until next summer.
I dug up a couple of the yukon gold potato plants a couple days ago. The spuds almost filled a two gallon bucket. If the rest of the row produces like that I'm going to have to figure out a place to store them. Mrs. Augie has been asking for a root cellar for awhile now. It might be a good time to build one.
We ate the first slicer tomato a few days ago. It was a nice fat black krim, and oh my did it ever taste good. All of the tomato plants that were in a funk from the wet weather in late May have recovered and look good. Two weeks from now we'll start harvesting some weight and with the hot peppers also coming on it will be time to fire up the salsa kitchen.
Mrs. Augie continues to produce her fermented pickles. She's well past two cases now and shows no sign of slowing down. The pole beans have started to produce. I've picked a few spaghetti squash and have more on the way. Butternut plants are loaded but the fruits need some more time to mature. Cabbages can come out any time. Beets came out yesterday, and I gave them a good boiling to slip the skins. They're getting made into beet pickles, which I'll finish up after I'm released from the salt mine later today.
After a summer of relative peace last year, the raccoon wars have started to heat back up. In the past three weeks we've lost six hens and two of Mrs. Augie's bird feeders have been destroyed, so I set the box trap Friday night and captured the gang leader. She had quite a nasty disposition, but we invited her to stay for supper anyway.
I found a great video on pruning an out of control indeterminate tomato plant. It’s the best one I have seen yet.
Pruning an Overgrown Tomato Plant!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCPaEhDEuBc
Got my UV flashlight yesterday & went hornworm hunting last evening. Everything looks so very weird in the UV light - leaves all purple, some bits of blue. Anyway, hornworms show up as pretty “white” in the light - found 3! Two were small-medium size & one was a medium-large. I would not have found the 2 smaller ones without the light - probably not the larger one either. I’ll be back out tonight to look around again.
Don’t forget to look at the Full Buck Super Moon, tonight!