Doing Life Without the Zucchini

June, 1997

My vegetable garden looks great right now.

No bugs, no blights, no soil baked hard as concrete.

Each summer, my garden and I go through this brief blissful honeymoon phase, when the seeds have just come up, the transplants haven't yet developed mysterious yellow spots and before the rabbits decide it's worth the effort of climbing through the fence.

I have learned to enjoy this while it lasts.

Sometimes I think my vegetable garden always takes a nose dive because it senses that I care more passionately about flowers than vegetables.

I can't deny it.

What can I say? Roses give me a thrill no zucchini can match.

Not that I can grow zucchini anymore. Oh sure, once I could grow zucchini the size of stone age clubs. And, like many gardeners, I took them for granted. They were the definitive fool-proof veggie.

But then I moved to the land of the squash-vine borer. These insidious pests have taken the zest out of zucchini for me. Year after year I watch my zucchini seeds germinate and quickly grow into luxurious green plants. They bloom with big fat yellow blossoms. Tiny squash begin to form. And then, one day, the whole plant suddenly looks as if it just got an upsetting phone call. Wilted and pale, the plants drop their blossoms. The fruit withers, and gradually they shrivel up and die.

I have tried a variety of strategies to deter or eliminate the problem. None did the job.

I am resigned to a life without homegrown zucchini. However, now that I can't grow it myself, I have a new appreciation for the homely zuke. Other gardeners may complain about their excess zucchini, and the way the young squash magically swell from dainty green cylinders to verdant baseball bats overnight. But I will never underestimate the value of a zucchini again.

Nor, I imagine, will Carlos Diaz, the infamous "zucchini bandit."

Diaz was convicted of armed robbery by a jury in Queens, N.Y., last March after he used a zucchini to rob a waiter. Pretending the zucchini was a gun, Diaz got away with $20 and a Swiss Army watch.

The case touched off a lot of controversy, in part because the conviction came after Diaz was prosecuted for the same crime four times. Two of the first three trials ended in hung juries, and one was declared a mistrial. I guess the juries had a hard time taking the whole thing seriously.

Unfortunately, robbery is no laughing matter, though, as Diaz must have realized when the 29-year-old learned that, as a repeat felon, he faced a possible life sentence.

In view of the crime I think a more appropriate punishment would have been to sentence the robber to a few years of migrant farm work. His life would have been shortened by the experience of inhaling all those pesticides and the back-breaking labor certainly would have convinced him that crime doesn't pay.

One wonders what inspired the hapless crook to choose a zucchini in the first place. Was it a premeditated act of vegetarian violence? Did he weigh the merits of carrots versus the heft of the squash?

Once he determined to deploy a vegetable, though, I'm not surprised that Diaz selected a zucchini as his faux weapon of choice. Say what you will about a zucchini's taste, or lack of same. No one could deny that a full grown specimen has presence.

Even if a zucchini doesn't qualify technically as a lethal weapon, you couldn't prove it by my children. They shudder at zucchini on the menu. In terms of distasteful foods, to them it's right up there on a par with brussel sprouts, mushrooms and tofu, to name a few other delicacies I can't produce from my garden.

Perhaps, only a lunatic would attempt armed robbery with a raw vegetable.

But,disturbing as the zucchini bandit episode may be, more alarming still are the possibilities it suggests for future crimes. I imagine this was what prompted the fourth jury to view the matter with gravity. Suppose one guy gets away with a zucchini robbery? Next thing you know, copycat criminals wielding celery stalks and rutabagas would inevitably follow his example.

And why stop with vegetables? The whole crime scene could go bananas, literally.

Of course I exaggerate. Dumb as most criminals are, most of them probably realize that a gun is more threatening than a zucchini.

Still, I'll bet for most people getting hold of a zucchini is almost as easy as getting a handgun.

Unless they've got a garden like mine.