WHEN I BECAME A GARDENER, ZUCCHINI was one of the first crops I planted because it was so prolific and easy to grow. I grew huge zucchinis, and since I didn’t always know what to do with them, I would deliver the thumping vegetables to friends who didn’t know what to do with them either.
While I still plant zucchini, I plant just 3 seeds in a hill and thin to the strongest-looking plant. One is plenty as long as you harvest flowers for stuffing and frying, and pick the fruits daily at 6 to 8 inches long. And if I can’t use them right away, friends don’t mind being given a trio of small zucchini with the blossoms still attached.
If you have any room for a small sunny garden, or even a large pot with good drainage that you can fill with purchased compost, one zucchini plant will keep you in plenty of flowers all summer, as long as you keep the fruits picked off. Male flowers are probably the best for stuffing. The petals emerge from a long, thin stem. Female flowers have an ovary behind the flower petals that is like a miniature squash. This adds a fleshy textural effect to the flowers that might interfere with the diaphanous petals. Both types of flower, though, have the same subtle taste.
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