September 12, 2009

Zucchini's Versatility

I love to cook, i learn a lot of my cooking from my mother and my grandmother by being in the kitchen and observing them. I never went to any cooking school, so the recipes that I know how too prepare are basically the ones that I observed from someone cooking or baking in the kitchen. Our family doesnt use zucchini very often, or I dont remember my mother or grandmother using zucchini at all, thats why I am not familiar with the vegetable.

Few months ago, we went to a store and buy cucumber seedlings because we love fresh salads and we put thin sliced cucumber in our salads. I dont know what happened because the supposed to be cucumber plants that we bought in the store ended up being zucchinis, and I have zero knowledge about cooking zucchinis at that time. We also realized that we got the huge zucchinis too, the ones that grow 12-14 inches long and 4-6 inches in diameter. Maybe what happened is that someone unknowingly or accidentally swapped plant labels in the store? I could only guess!



Weeks went by, before we know it, we ended up with so many zucchini harvests, 8 to 12 zucchinis in one day harvest and with how huge they are, its a lot of zucchinis for a family that dont eat a lot of it, or dont know how to cook one. Inorder not to waste any of it, we gladly give some for free to friends and neighbors. I also checked online to see what are my options to prepare zucchinis. And I found out that its commonly use around the US for cooking. You can just slice them and put them in the barbeque as side dish for your barbequed meat. Others dip them in batter and fry sliced zucchinis. You can also cubes zucchinis and put them into your meat vegetable recipes, or slice them diagonally and put them in your chow mein recipe. You can also made bread out of zucchinis! My favorite new finding is making zucchini cake, they are suprisingly good, not to mention healthy too!

Zucchini plant requires a little bit of space to grow because they crawl into the soil and branch more leaves. How they mature reminds me of a centipede, the main stem grow longer and crawl into the surrounding soil and have bunch of leaves branching all over it (main stem). A zucchini leave is quite huge, they resemble the size on an elepant ear plant, which can grow around 12 to 14 inches. I am not sure if its just me, or its really known that the pipe-like stems of a zucchini can be really itchy because of all the spikey fibers in them. So after messing with zucchini plants, I have to wash my hands, arms, and legs with soap right after.

A zucchini plant produce a deep yellow flowers as the zucchini vegetables are developing. The yellow flower is kind of nice and big, see photo above for the flower shot. In the beginning, my first encounter of zucchini is a surprise and accidental, but its versatility and all its many uses in the kitchen, i am confident we are going to have it more often in the kitchen than we ever did before, and its probably going to be one of the regular vegetable that we will be using nowadays. What about you? Do you eat zucchinis?
Hope you enjoy this article I wrote. Feel free to subsribe to my RSS feed, or click the Follow Me button so you will have an easier way of finding this site/blog again. Thank you for the read, JazeVox, author.
Written and Photography by Jazevox. All Rights Reserved.


June 18, 2009

Banana Plant

One of the common fruit that usually land in many family tables is the banana fruit. Bananas are readily available for purchase in most grocery stores, supermarkets, and/or markets to be included in our daily diet. Its delicious and highly nutricious.

Most families have banana fruits in their regular food intake, but most of us do not really think much about how they grow or what a banana plant really looks like. The above photo shows a photo of a banana heart or flower, where each of the banana fruit has been nurtured as it develops into a mature fruit over time. The banana heart is usually composed of deep crimson red or maroon color layers skin housing young banana tender fruits as it undergo development and grow bigger to become banana fruits.


Banana plants commonly grow in tropical climates like Hawaii and many Asian countries. Although, banana plant does sometimes grow and survive in some parts of the USA with tropical weather. In areas with severe winter and freezing temperatures, banana can also possibly grow in a controlled environment like bigger greenhouses and/or indoors (for dwarf banana plants) with proper lighting and sun exposure.

A normal banana plants looks like the one in the photo above, they have huge leaves that are overtimes torn and shreded at the plant mature and expose to the wind and weather battling the leaves back and forth, tearing them apart that resembles to a paper halfway shredded.


Written and Photography by Jazevox. All rights reserved.
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May 22, 2009

Pink Camellia


There are several varieties of Camellia flowers that can be found in some countries. The camellia flower photos shown here are from our garden. Love the type of camellia flower plant we have because it has stunning pink petals neatly layered in stunning formation of delicate petals similar in look to a lotus flower.


A camellia plant is usually an evergreen shrub with glossy think leaves. During bloom season, they can produce several beautiful flowers in unison, giving you an impressive display of colors for your yard. Camellia species come in different colors like pink, red, yellow, white, etc.


Written and Photography by Jazevox. All rights reserved. See you again here in the near future! Dont forget to subscribe to this site RSS Feed or add this site to your Favorites! Have a nice day, JazeVox

April 20, 2009

Magical Exotic Flowers

Here is a photo of some of the most bizzare looking exotic flowers that you can find in a tropical islands like Hawaii. You dont normally see these flowers growing wildly in most yard in the mainland USA, but for areas with nice tropical climate like Hawaii, they can easily grow these unique and interesting looking flower plants.









Written and Photography by Jazevox. All rights reserved.


February 13, 2009

Vibrant Bougainvilla Flowers

Widely popular and abundant in many tropical islands like Hawaii and Asian countries, Bougainvilla flowers do survive in some US states specially areas with sunny and mild climates.

Bougainvilla flower is a favorite among many because of its capability to produce abundant, vibrant and rich color flowers specially red or fuchsia that could easily transform a boring spot in a yard into a gorgeous display of flowers.


Bougainvilla flower plant is a great alternative to add color to certain areas in your yard specially near the fences and corners of your yard. You may buy them as young plant but normally bougainvillas can possibly grow around 4-5 feet tall and wide as well, so it is wise to consider planting them in places where there is space to grow wide and tall and not fight with your other plants.
Bougainvilla plant is not very ideal for all household because of its very thorny stems, more like rose plants. So if you have kids and toddlers that are frequent in areas that you are considering of planting bougainvilla flower plant, it might not be a great idea afterall because the thorns can pose as danger to them.
Written and Photography by JazeVox. All rights reserved. 

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www.GardenersLand.com blog is a daily gardener diary about gardens, gardening, plants, planting flowers, fruits trees, and other plants with tips, experiences, tricks, lessons, techniques. Avid outdoor and yard person sharing stories and experiences. Feel free to leave comments and subscribe to this blog RSS feed above (upper right column). Please note that this blog was previously called PlantingDiary..