When I was in elementary school, my parents built a house in a former cow pasture in a Boston suburb. Not long after we moved in, they decided to grow their own vegetables. Two city kids moved their family to the suburbs and decided to have a little garden. What could possibly go wrong?
Behind door number 10 I’ll share the legend of the Good, the Bad, and the Zucchini.
December 10, 2024
My parents’ suburban gardening adventure began on a spring day when my father’s friend, Charlie, drove his tractor to our house and tilled an enormous swath of earth in the back yard. An understandable rookie mistake, the garden plot turned out larger than expected, but my folks were undaunted. Plans for planting got swiftly underway.
The second rookie mistake took the form of my mother thinking it was a good idea to plant a half dozen zucchini plants. The yield was industrial in scale; more than she, three ravenous teenage boys in the house notwithstanding, could possibly cook. Realizing she would soon be swamped, Mom gave me a basket full of zucchini to distribute around the neighborhood. The loaded basket was wicked heavy, but I wanted to help. I liked zucchini, but when she started turning it into jam, even I realized something had to be done.
The first morning I went door to door with the harvest, the neighbors welcomed me and my little green friends warmly. I went home to refill the basket and went back out for a second delivery.
A week later I was met at each door with gratitude, but the neighbors insisted they only needed a few. I went home with a couple of squash left over.
Three weeks in, the neighbors had planned their defense. I was repeatedly told to tell my matriarch that they were all set. I went home having only liberated my basket of a few zucchini.
By the end of the month, I traipsed the neighborhood streets with baseball bat sized squash poking out of my basket. Neighbors reluctantly cracked open their doors. Not wishing to be rude or seem ungrateful, apologies flowed like the zucchini wine my father was threatening to make. Phones that didn’t ring needed to be answered. Babies cried at a frequency only their mothers could hear. Some of them didn’t even have babies. Desperate times called for desperate measures. The last door I visited opened slowly and a zucchini-weary neighbor demurred with, “Tell your mother we’re turning green!”
I didn’t let the neighbors’ cool reception in the dog days of summer faze me. Whether I returned home with my basket empty or full, Mom had lunch prepared and waiting for my trouble. It would likely contain zucchini, but it would be good for me.
I walked home in the heat like a gunslinger at high noon. The girl with no name; the protagonist in my own spaghetti squash western. The street was empty, but I knew all eyes were on me. My holster, an antique wicker basket, bore verdant squash that, when lifted from its interior, drove the faint of heart behind their lace curtains. It was a lonely feeling, but I took heart that when the corn was ready, I’d be welcomed back a hero.
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