the.com/summer squash
Zucchini's whole family: soft-skinned, fast-growing, and silently taking over your garden.
means A squash picked and eaten while still young and tender-skinned, instead of left to mature into a hard-shelled winter squash.
from 'Squash' comes from the Narragansett word 'askutasquash,' meaning 'eaten raw or uncooked' — an Indigenous name for these American vining plants that English colonists borrowed and shortened. 'Summer' was tacked on later simply to mark the harvest season, distinguishing these thin-skinned, quick-to-mature varieties from their tougher 'winter squash' cousins, which are harvested later and store through the cold months.
- harvest window
- picked immature, skin and seeds still tender
- yield problem
- one plant can bury a neighborhood in zucchini
- contrast
- unlike winter squash, does not store past a week
- botanical twist
- technically a fruit, cooked and eaten like a vegetable