The summer garden's top 3 OH NOs and their solutions

About this time of year, we start getting frantic OH NO emails from clients whose gardens are doing crazy things and, in some cases, nothing at all.

There's a lot of OH NOing and WHAT THE HELL DO I DOing and general freaking out and that is AOK.

We're on the case.

Here are the top 3 summer garden OH NOs and what you can do to sort them out. Without freaking out. Or...with minimal freaking out.

Seeds don't germinate

This is our woe this summer, again, because sometimes we can't learn from our previous season's mistakes. Specifically, that we can't keep the hot San Jose soil mo-ist enough long enough for forever-taking seeds like carrots to germinate.

Um...carrots? Helloooo?

Some measures you can take to make sure you have good germination rates for direct sown crops (where you put the seed right in your garden soil rather than starting it indoors first) is to know the crop's ideal sowing and germination conditions (in the case of carrots it's 1/4" seed depth, soil temps of 55-80 degrees, even water, consistent moisture, loamy soil with limited soil crusting) and follow them to the letter.

These tiny carrot seeds are the forever-takingest (20 days to germinate) of the direct sown seeds.

You can find this information on your seed packets and it's mightily helpful in getting a good stand (full germination of your crop in the garden) and final product.

If you have poor germination rate or none at all (like our poor carrots), you can adjust your conditions to suit the crop and resow, choose another crop to grow in the conditions that you DO have or, like we'll be doing, just let your nearby crops take over (AKA - Do nothing).

We'll try this again in the fall.

Blossoms fall off

When the temps spike, I start to get a lot of emails and pings from Indie Farmers worried about the blossoms falling off of their tomatoes.

In this case, some set fruit and some dropped off.

I get the same emails and pings when we have a super windy spell or it suddenly gets cold or a black cat crosses under a ladder nearby.

And that's all because of stress. When tomatoes get stressed - by temperatures that move outside of their ideal range (70-85 degrees), wind tossing around their leaves and branches, air pollution, lack of nutrients, pest attack, etc - they go into survival mode, just like all plants do.

And survival mode in plants looks like blossoms dropping, slowing of growth, fruit that doesn't ripen - that kind of thing. Because the plant is conserving energy to survive and the creation of flowers, setting of fruit on those flowers and ripening of fruit are the most energy consuming of the plant's activities.

So, the key to YOU surviving the plant's survival mode is to help the plant along. Look at the conditions the plant is experiencing and help it out.

If it's been really windy, put up a wind break around your plants, stake their branches so they don't break in the wind, or (if it's in a pot) move it to an area that's more protected.

The staking and protected space keeps this wee tomato plant from getting wrecked.

If it's been really hot, give your plant some afternoon shade with shade cloth, make sure you're watering deeply in the cool morning hours and limit the time you spend working the plants to the cooler morning hours.

Once conditions return to those that the plant likes best, it will go back to setting flowers and fruit and ripening that fruit. Healthy plants also fight off pests much more effectively and don't attract pests like sickly plants do.

Everything bolts super fast

When conditions move outside the range that your plants prefer (in the case of summer, it gets HOT), you'll notice your crops like lettuce, basil, cilantro and broccoli will start to send up tall stalks that eventually flower and set seed.

Look familiar? Oh, cilantro.

This is, again, your crop's way of surviving by producing the next generation (AKA - seed) and the heat is also a signal to cool season crops that it's time to procreate and survive.

Some crops like basil can be pinched to prevent bolting, but other crops like lettuce and cilantro will become bitter and tough even if you do prune off their flowering stalks.

Pinch me! Pinch me! Naughty.

For the cooler crops that you do want to grow during the hot summer months, try moving them to an area that gets afternoon shade or GIVE them afternoon shade where they're growing already, sow seed on a tighter schedule (every week rather than every other week) and harvest regularly to keep them in production mode.

Lettuce might like to grow in the shade of your bean tipi. Just sayin'.

Eat your summer

You ready to knock back that encroaching garden for dinner tonight?

Good. Here we go.

Go out to that garden/farmers' market/neighbor's yard/whathaveyou with a big basket or bucket (shallow and wide is better than tall and deep) and gather up:

A handful of tomatoes
A few zucchini, crookneck or other summer squash that desperately needs a talking to
A bunch of basil
Some oregano

Return to your kitchen with yellowish green fingernails and a better lease on life to rinse your vegetables and get on with this whole dinner thing.

Before you start chopping away, gather up the other non-vegetable gardeny things like GOOD olive oil, Parmesan cheese (finely shredded), mozzarella (sliced into rounds) and some good salt. I'll let you decide what constitutes "good" salt in your house, but I like grey salt, sea salt, pink salt, black lava salt - even kosher salt. Pretty much anything that's not just straight table salt because, well, I don't have that in my house.

My poor table.

Anyway - let's make dinner.

Slice the tomatoes into 1/2" rounds, the squash into long 1/2" thin strips, pluck the basil leaves from their stems and strip the oregano from its stem and finely chop. Ooh la la!

Happiest cutting board in the west.

Go grab a nice oven safe dish. Glass works nicely, but whatever you've got will do fine. Crank that oven to 400 degrees and set up your dish to start loading in the summer garden.

First, give the bottom of the dish a good dose of olive oil and a bit of salt. This will keep the whole glorious thing from sticking to the bottom, which is a total drag.

Then start the layering just like you would lasagna, but instead of noodles, you have squash strips. I'm sure you've seen/done this before, so it's not like I'm telling you anything new here BUT OH every time I make this from the crazy busty garden I feel like a hero.

Mostly because I no longer have a weight advantage over the zucchini and it scares me so this is my way of reminding it who's boss, but still. Whatever it takes to feel like a hero, am I right?

Anyway, layer thusly:

Olive oil > Zucchini strips > Tomato rounds > Basil leaves bottoms up

Then some Parmesan. See how the basil holds on to the cheese in its upturned cups? Yeah. You see.

Cupping!

Then add your sliced mozzarella right on there.

The cupping is still in effect

Then give it all a splash of the olive oil, salt and the Ooh la la stripped oregano.

Then do the layering all over again, finishing with a shingled basil layer, tops up this time.

Mmm...basil shingles. That's gooooooooooooood shingling.

And don't forget the rest of the cheese and whatever oregano's still lying around for the tippy top.

That's a tower of I WIN right there.

Cover with foil and bake the whole deal in your 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until the juices are abubblin' (this is where it helps to use a glass dish, so you can just look in there and see the abubblin' without having to take off the foil and maybe burn your face/hand off - just saying) and then remove the foil altogether and let it bake for another 10 minutes or until the cheese is browned a bit on top.

Let it cool for a few minutes if you can and then slice into it and serve it with a fresh basil leaf on top because that just screams FRESH GARDEN GOODNESS right in your face, does it not?

IN THE FACE

A garden take down never tasted so good.

Fastest pickles in the west. Or anywhere for that matter.

Um, are your cucumbers suddenly all, "HI! We're here! And we brought all of our friends!"?

Because ours are. BOY HOWDY are they.

But, since we've long run out of pickles from last year's crop of cucumbers, we're OK with it. In the sense that we're totally thrilled.

You can't tell from this photo, but we're doing handstands and cheers and stuff.

And since we haven't had homemade pickles since some time over the winter when our cupboard ran empty, we want this year's pickles NOW.

But canning pickles takes sooooooooooooooo long, right? Then they have to sit in the cupboard and cure for a while before they're really good.

Thankfully, there's the mighty refrigerator pickle.

Oh, refrigerator pickles - they are our spring time savior. Just when we can't wait any longer for the first crunch of pickle season, refrigerator pickles fill the bill like total pros. And you don't even have to have that many cucumbers to fill this recipe. Seriously, all it takes is about 3-4 cucumbers and a pint jar and you're good to go.

Or 12. We're not picky.

And - hey if you happen to have lemons coming in this time of year and a bit of dill growing in your garden somewhere, you're about to be pretty pleased with this recipe.

Indie Farms' Favorite Fridge Pickles 

Makes 1 pint
Ingredients
3-4 smallish pickling cucumbers (we like National Pickling, Homemade Pickles, Solly Beiler and Boothby's Blonds a lot for this)
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 lemon, sliced horizontally
1 sprig of fresh dill
3/4 cup vinegar (white vinegar is fine, apple cider vinegar is good, too)
3/4 cup water
1 T whole peppercorns
2 t kosher or sea salt (just don't use table salt)

To make

1. Wash those cucumbers and slice off the tips (this keeps them from bittering up - ew)
2. Boil some water in a small pot and give those cukes a quick dunk (10 seconds is plenty). This will improve the flavor of your pickles. Promise.
3. Combine vinegar, water and salt in a small pot and bring to a boil
4. Add a couple of the lemon slices, the peppercorns and the garlic to the jar. Then pack in your cucumbers and dill sprig and top with another lemon slice.
5. Pour the brine over the cucumbers and fill the jar to 1/4" from the rim 
6. Screw on the lid and put your pickles in the fridge for a day
7. 24 hours later - EAT PICKLES WOO!

See, wasn't that easy? It was. And in a day you're going to be crunching your face off with pickle glory. So, you know, enjoy that.

The deal with fertilizing

You know what's the #1 thing I see people do with their vegetable gardens that keeps them from having a badass harvest?

They don't feed their plants.

Me so hungry

Sure - they may add some compost or something when they put the plants in the ground in the spring time and you KNOW they're watering the ever loving hell out of that garden for oh a month or so anyway, but I hardly see anyone go back to feed their plants with even a general purpose fertilizer.

Feeding - or fertilizing - is a crucial element in the Growing Your Own Food process. Without feeding your plants, they're not going to have enough nutrients available through simply foraging in the soil with their root systems to produce the kind of big belly filling harvests that I know you want.

Now THAT is a harvest

Right? Don't we all put our vegetable plants in the ground expecting to be able to return with a big ol' basket to fill to the brim?

Yes. Yes we do. I can see you nodding your heads.

Let me put it to you the way that it was put to me:

Plants need food to make food. 

This harvest was not produced on water alone

Oh. Right.

Just like you wouldn't just give a kid glass after glass of water and expect them to grow up big and strong, your vegetable plants need more than just water to produce food for you to eat.

Not that I'm insinuating that you feed your kids so that you can eat them or anything - that's just weird - but I think you see what I'm getting at.

If you were a tomato plant, you'd be drooling at this compost tea right now

Fertilizing is important. It's how our hard working vegetable plants go from simply surviving to thriving and producing.

But how do you fertilize different vegetable plants? Do they all like the same things? Do they take their meals three times a day? How much time are we really talking about here? And, come on, does it really make that big of a difference?

I'm glad you asked.

How to fertilize different vegetable plants
So, you are totally right to wonder whether different plants want different fertilizers - they do. In some part.

I'll have my dressing on the side, please.

See, all vegetable plants need the same 16-18 macro and micro nutrients to carry out their biological processes. Some of these are macro nutrients, which they need more of (hence the "macro") for the more fundamental of processes like building cells and photosynthesis and some are micro nutrients, which they need trace amounts of to carry out more specialized processes like production of fruit and seeds and protection from stress.

A good way to go about feeding your plants what they need throughout the growing season, beyond your usual soil building and composting regimen, is to side dress (or apply to the soil around your plants) with a balanced organic vegetable-specific fertilizer, fertilizer tea or compost tea on a regular basis throughout the growing season in amounts based on the growth stage of your plants.

If you don't have access to worm castings to make tea, you can also make a fertilizer tea from a good organic vegetable fertilizer like Gardner & Bloome's Tomato, Vegetable & Herb fertilizer.

A bonus of using a good balanced and organic fertilizer is that it'll usually also have added beneficial soil microbes and mycorrhizae that will boost productivity of the root systems, fend off soil pathogens and other good science-y stuff that I won't weigh you down with right now.

Just know - you're probably not getting all this goodness with the synthetic stuff. It's the fast food cheeseburger of plant foods and it's not doing your garden any favors.

When to fertilize your vegetable plants
We like to side dress all of our vegetables, fruits and herbs with worm casting tea on a monthly basis throughout the growing season, starting with the first flower set or, in the case of vining plants, when the vines start to run.

Can you hear the dinner bell? Because we can.

Depending on the vegetable fertilizer you use, you may only fertilize once every 4-6 weeks. Take a read of the package instructions.

The crucial feeding times are when your plants are performing the most energy-sucking activities like producing flowers, sending out vines and setting fruit, so these are also a good reminders that it's time to feed.

Once you have the general purpose vegetable fertilizer going, you can focus on providing the specific nutrients that your individual crops need.

For instance, broccoli needs a little extra boron to form solid stems and tomatoes need calcium to avoid blossom end rot.

What kind of results you can expect
Fertilizing isn't a miracle or a cure all or any other kind of mystical magic silver bullet for your vegetable garden, but it is the difference between a so-so harvest and an awesome one.  It's also the difference between vegetables that look good but taste sorta bland and ones that knock you back in your chair with WHY DOESN'T ALL FOOD TASTE LIKE THIS?! flavor. It can also be the difference between plants that are attacked by pests and plants that are healthy and vigorous.

When you combine a feeding plan with soil building, companion planting, crop rotation and appropriate watering, your harvests will boom, your pest problems won't be so severe and your garden will thrive like it means business.

And business is gooooooooooooooood

Chocolate Roasted Beet Pudding Cake

This is a tested recipe from Canelle Vanille and it's fantastic.

Truly, beautifully fantastic.

And it uses up lots of beets, which I love and need desperately.

Chocolate Roasted Beet Pudding Cake

Spicy green tomato pickles

I have two questions for you:

1. Do you have green tomatoes hanging around on your plants?
2. Do you like Bloody Marys?

If you answered yes, have I got the canning recipe for you.

OK, to be fair I should have asked three questions, with the third being:

    3. Do you know how to can tomatoes?

But, if you don't know how to can tomatoes and you want to learn - Indie Farms has a session just for that. Learn how to use a canner, can some tomatoes, turn your back on storebought canned tomatoes forever - it's a good time.

Meanwhile, if you're looking to do something with the green tomatoes on your plants that will never ripen as the season is about over, this recipe is a delicious combination of my standard tomato canning recipe and my pickle recipe and results in a most fabulous cocktail garnish, appetizer platter winner and green olive stand-in.

"Green" can mean anything that's not 100% ripe. Just for the record.

I gave these as part of my holiday gifts last year and they were the biggest crowd pleaser of all the preserved foods. Even more so than my blackberry jam which shocked the pants right off of me.

Don't worry. I was home alone when it happened.

SO! Ready to preserve the final remains of your summer tomato harvest?

Get to it already. Then take those tomato plants out and put some cover crops in already - it's October!

Sheesh.

Spicy Green Tomato Pickles
Notes in italics

Makes 6 pints (or, in my case, 6 half pints and 2 pints) 
Ingredients
3+ pounds green tomatoes, washed and halved or quartered (bite size is what we're going for)
3 1/2 cups vinegar
3 1/2 cups water
1/4 canning salt (kosher salt works fine)
6+ garlic cloves  (1 per jar)
1-3 T red pepper flakes (you decide how hot you like it)

Equipment
Hot water canner with rack
Canning tools: Jar lifter,  jar funnel, tightener
6 pint jars, 6+ half pint jars or a mix of jars
Lids and bands for all of your jars

To make
Wash your tomatoes and cut them into either halves or quarters with the intention of making them all about the same bite size.

The reason it's important for them to be about the same size is that they'll all process the same and you won't have some that are overdone with some that are less done. 

It's all about consistency of doneness, is what I'm trying to say.

Combine your salt, vinegar, red pepper flakes and water in a large saucepot. Bring to a boil.

We used the full 3 tablespoons because we like it spicy at the test garden.

 If you're using more or less tomatoes than the 3+ pounds in the recipe, you can adjust your water and vinegar mix accordingly - just keep the ratio intact. So, like, if you only have a pound of tomatoes, use 1 1/2 cups of water and 1 1/2 cups of vinegar. 

The ratios are what's really important, so don't be sad and not do this if you only have a pound of tomatoes. You don't *need* 3+ pounds to make this, it's just what I had when I made the recipe. I also will not judge you if you start a full hot water canner for 3 pints of these tomato pickles - they're *that* good.

Pack your tomatoes into hot sterilized jars, leaving 1/4" head space. That's what is recommended out in the great wide world of canning, anyway. 

Did you know that was out there? It is. It's great.

Add 1 clove of garlic to each jar and ladle the hot peppered vinegar mixture over the tomatoes.

Remove air bubbles with a tiny spatula or that little plastic wand that comes with some of your canning tool sets.

Put on the two piece lids and bands.

Process 15 minutes in your hot water canner.

This time around, we had a full house of pints and half pints.

Allow to cool, then make some Bloodys, have your nicer neighbors over for appetizers and cocktails and then throw away your green olives because you're done with those.

These you're just getting started with.

Also, can I ask a favor? I promise I won't get greedy with my favor-asking. 

When you're done canning, let that water cool and then use it to water your plants. Or rinse off your windshield. Or wash your dog. Or something other than just dumping it down the drain.

It's perfectly good sterilized water. You could probably birth a baby with it, but I am not recommending that because I don't know nothin' about birthin' no babies. Also, that screams liability. 

Anyway, as a favor to me and Indie Farms, please don't waste water. Or birth babies on our instruction. Thanks, friends.

Lusty tomato pasta

When in doubt, and in tomato season, you will find me in the kitchen making this dish.

Especially if any of the following situations are at play:

• It's hot out. Like, so hot you can't imagine turning on an oven or even whispering the words, blow dryer.
• The tomato plants are producing at a rate unequaled in all of plantdom.
• I only have a few minutes to make dinner and even fewer brain cells with which to craft it.
• I don't have much in the way of fresh meat, so it's pantry staples + garden produce or nothing.

The crucial EXTRA important key to this dish - to making it a dish that you will come back to when you're hot, sweaty, starved and not prepared to think your way through a complicated recipe - is the bowl treatment.

The what?

Yes, the treatment you give your bowl (a good sized glass bowl works best) with the cut side of a garlic clove is the key to a dish that will have you drinking the juices straight, before you even get to the whole "dinner" part of things.

Or, if you're me, you'll pour yourself a little glass of this liquid delight while the mixture is getting all lusty and you'll drink it right there with a little basil garnish because that totally makes sense in the heat of the moment.

And believe me, when you're making this, heat is almost certainly involved.

So, next time it's hot, you're starved for something great and your garden's pumping out tomatoes and basil at a terrifying rate - here you go.

Lusty Tomato Pasta

Adapted from The Splendid Table's recipe for Mellowed Fresh Tomatoes for Pasta

My changes in bold

Ingredients
2 tomatoes per person, chopped
1/2 pound whole wheat spaghetti
1 bunch of fresh basil, rinsed and ripped
2 garlic cloves, papers removed, halved
3 T olive oil 
1 T sea salt
1 t cayenne pepper
1/2 t fresh ground black pepper

To make
Rub down the inside of a glass bowl with the cut sides of the garlic cloves until it's completely coated. Leave the garlic in the bowl and add the tomatoes,  peppers, salt and oil. Stir completely, being sure to drag the mixture around the sides of the bowl to completely incorporate the garlic's juices.

Throw in the basil, give it a final stir and then let it rest while you boil the pasta.

When the pasta's almost al dente (slightly uncooked in the center when you bite into it), drain it and immediately toss it with the tomato mixture, being sure to get the pasta down to the juices waiting at the bottom of the bowl.

Let the pasta mingle with the tomato mixture for a few minutes, tasting the juices and adding salt and pepper to your own taste. 

Serve with some fresh basil on top and some toasted garlic bread on the side. Otherwise be prepared for your diners to drink from the bowl, which isn't the worst thing that's ever happened.

Zucchini cheddar biscuits

If you're looking for something else to do with squash aside from stuff it or saute it or bury it in every sauce and pasta dish to hit our table, I'm here to tell you that you can bake it.

And not like bake a stuffed squash or something, but actually bake it into biscuits which are really tasty and lovely to serve with dinner. 

And then when you're all drunk with the power of baking squash into things, you can make this for dessert.

I'm just saying that I know what happens when you're drunk with the power of baking vegetables into things and I want to support that.

Anyway, this recipe from Garden Fresh Vegetable Cookbook, which I love and adore, is Zucchini Cheddar Breakfast Biscuits and transforms a giant squash into 2 cups of perfect matchsticks that get turned into 1 cup (after draining and squishing) of binding goop perfect for biscuits. And don't be deterred by the "breakfast" in the title, there. I served these with dinner and no one put up a fight.

Wouldn't you like to make these biscuits with all of the squash moving into your guest room? I bet you might.

 Zucchini Cheddar Biscuits

Adapted from Andrea Chessman's recipe in Garden-Fresh Vegetable Cookbook
My changes in bold

Ingredients
2 cups of julienned summer squash
1 tsp salt
3 cups whole wheat flour1 Tbsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp fresh ground mixed peppercorns
4 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 cup grated cheddar
1/4 cup buttermilk
*I omitted the bacon called for in the recipe because we didn't have any on hand, but I'm SURE it would be delicious to include. Obviously.

Toss the squash and salt into a colander and let it hang out for half hour. At that point you can squeeze the water out of it and end up with a nice 1 cup wad of squash goop.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and pepper into a bowl and cut in the butter until you have a coarse crumb texture going on. Then mix in the cheese and squash with a fork and then add the buttermilk. Stir it around with your fork until it forms a nice stiff dough.

Flour your counter or a board and turn the dough out onto it for a brief kneading session where some of it will get stuck to your fingers, but that's OK. Just flour your hands more. Roll the dough out and use a random glass from the cupboard to cut biscuits into the dough. I found our highball glasses worked nicely, but if you want to get all technical you could use a 3 inch round cutter.

Put your biscuits on a baking sheet and toss them in the oven for about 15 minutes.

Go to town with these at whatever meal suits you. I don't judge.

Zucchini cupcakes

I've found the best way to get rid of loads of squash (zucchini, crookneck, whathaveyou) is to shred it and put it into chocolate cake.

Because everyone loves chocolate cake and since they don't know that there's evil squash inside, they eat it all up like WOO CHOCOLATE CAKE and I go WOO THE SQUASH IS GONE and then WOO MY PANTS FEEL TIGHT because I love chocolate cake, too. Whoopsy.

But the satisfaction I get from stowing two or three huge squash in something that will be readily disposed of is extreme, and so I carry on. Let's hope my jeans make it through squash season. 

Wow. That's something I've never said before. 

 

Moving on...

If you want to hide all your squash in a cake (and let's face it, who doesn't? It's very fun.) try this recipe from my favorite use-all-your-garden-vegetables cookbook, Serving up the Harvest by Andrea Chessman.

Dark Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes
Adapted from the Dark Chocolate Zucchini Bundt Cake recipe

in Serving up the Harvest, Andrea Chesman

Ingredients

2 1/2 C flour

3/4 C unsweetened cocoa powder

2 t baking powder

1 t baking soda

1 t salt

1/2 t ground cinnamon

2 C brown sugar (make sure you have this before you make the whole recipe)

1/2 C butter

2 eggs

2 oz baking chocolate, melted + cooled

1 t vanilla extract

1 C coffee

3 C grated squash (WOO!)

 

 

To make

Preheat oven to 350.

Grease your cupcake tins (this made almost 2 dozen) in whatever fashion suits you.

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. And really sift it using a sifter or something because it mixes it nice and gets rid of lumps. No one wants to eat a lump of baking powder, y'all. That's nasty.

 

No lumps. That's all I ask.

Beat together the brown sugar and butter in a mixer and add the eggs one at a time until they're combined. Add in the chocolate and vanilla until combined and then switch off adding the coffee and flour mixture until it's all in there. Scrape down the bowl and then mix in the squash. 

Pour the whole mess into the cupcake tin and bake for approximately 30 minutes or until the toothpick does the Coming Out Clean thing. 

Allow to cool and watch for Cupcake Monsters that do this:

 

Cupcake monsters are the worst kind of monsters.

And then, once they're cooled and you want to impress people, add some powdered sugar to the top to be fancy. If you want, you can use the fancy method I learned while standing in line at the store.

See, as I was buying the brown sugar I thought I had but didn't and was soothing my aggravated soul with a free sample reading of Real Simple, I came across this month's New Uses for Old Things that was to use a tea ball to shake powdered sugar over things. 

I do believe I said aloud to myself: YES. I WILL DO THIS. 

And then I did. See below.

 

Works like a charm.

But, if you're just going to be shoving all the cupcakes into a zippy bag and taking them to work to pawn off on your coworkers who still fit in their jeans, feel free to ditch the fancy sugar and just leave them plain. They're still real good. Promise. I even ate one in the car to prove it - so there.

Now go love on your zucchini. GO.