In the beginning, it was all about vegetables. My parents wanted to grow their own, so off we went to live in the country.

"Think of it, Allison," Dad told me as he packed his new garden tools. "Home-grown tomatoes and carrots. Potatoes fresh from the garden. All the broccoli and cauliflower anyone could want."

Which wouldn't be much, I thought, trying to smile. Little did I know that by the end of summer, either cauliflower or broccoli would be a welcome sight.

Our new place was an old two-story house on an acre of land. Next door, to the east, lived Mr. Ballard. He raised pigs. It was alright, except when the wind blew from that direction. On those days, we stayed inside.

Our first big trip was to the Big Valley Hardware Store to pick out our garden seeds. Mom and Dad rummaged through the racks of seeds like kids in a toy store.

"Look, Stan," Mom called. "Here are some zucchini squash seeds. Let's get them."

So we did, along with seed potatoes, tiny tomato plants, and corn, peas, beans, and other seed packages.

While we were planting, Mr. Ballard looked over the fence. "Howdy," he said. "Nice garden you got."

"Thanks," Dad said. "We—"

"What's that?" Mr. Ballard interrupted, squinting at the seed packet Mom was holding. "Is that zucchini?"

"Why, yes," said Mom, pleased.

"You didn't plant the whole package, did you?" Mr. Ballard asked.

"Yes," Mom said. "What's wrong with that?"

"Oh, nothing," Mr. Ballard said. "Well, good luck," he added, then walked away—laughing.

Our garden grew fast, especially the zucchini. They choked out my dad's cucumbers and started growing over the tops of the bean plants. Dad wasn't too happy, but Mom said zucchini were good for you and could be made into lots of delicious dishes.

Soon the zucchini vines were covered with hundreds of big, orange-yellow blossoms. I thought they were pretty. It didn't occur to me that hundreds of blossoms meant hundreds of zucchini.

Later, Mom picked the first zucchini. "And there are lots more of them," she said proudly. "I can't wait to try some of the recipes in my new zucchini cookbook."

It was fun for a while. But there were a couple hundred recipes in that book, and it seemed like we tried them all. We had steamed zucchini, baked, stuffed, and fried zucchini, zucchini-carrot cake, zucchini-nut bread, and zucchini-oatmeal cookies.

"Ugh," my brother Andy said one day when Mom set a plate of raw zucchini sticks on the table. "Can't we have something else?"

Mom sighed. "We can't let them go to waste, dear. There are so many of them yet to be eaten."

"Why don't you try giving some away?" I asked.

Mom frowned. "I've already given so many away that people lock their doors when they see me coming," she said.

My dad chimed in. "I'm going to become malnourished," he complained. "My body is crying out for a tender tomato or some crisp green beans. But all I get is zucchini." He went back to nibbling at his meatloaf, which he had cut into tiny pieces to be sure there was no zucchini it it. Not only was Dad being served zucchini at every meal, but the zucchini vines had choked out every other vegetable in the garden.

Mr. Ballard thought this was very funny. "How are the zucchini farmers today?" he would call over the fence.

My dad didn't like this. "I'd rather have a garden full of zucchini than a farm full of smelly pigs," he said.

Mr. Ballard just shrugged. "Pigs are pigs," he said.

Not long after that, I had a dream in which I fell out of a boat into a swamp of steamed zucchini. The next night, I heard Andy moaning. I jumped out of bed and ran to his room.

"Allison," he sobbed, "I was being chased by a great big zucchini. It was trying to eat me!"

One morning when Mom had gone out early to pick zucchini, I served Dad his breakfast omelette.

"Great! No zucchini pancakes this morning," he said. He took a big bite and his fork clattered to the table.

"No," he said. "I will not eat a zucchini omelette." He took a swallow of juice and set his glass down with a thunk.

"That does it," he said. "Zucchini-orange juice. She thought I wouldn't notice. Dorothy!" he roared.

Just then there was a scream from the garden. We all ran outside to find Mom standing there holding the biggest zucchini I had ever seen.

"Stan!" Mom shrieked. "They're growing faster and faster all the time. They were only half this big yesterday."

Mr. Ballard heard the commotion and looked over the fence. "You folks got trouble?" he asked.

Dad put his arm around Mom and gave Mr. Ballard a very frosty look. "Nothing that concerns you," he said.

"Oh, well," Mr. Ballard said, scratching his head. "I guess I've got enough troubles of my own. Confounded worms ate up my whole corn crop."

He sighed. "Don't know what I'm going to feed my pigs until I can find some corn for sale." He walked away, muttering to himself.

We took Mom inside, and Dad put her to bed. "She'll probably sleep all day," he said. "She's exhausted."

He collapsed on the couch. "All right, kids," he said. "We must think of a way to get rid of that zucchini. I won't allow another one to be brought into this house. If this continues, your mother will be a nervous wreck."

Fortunately, I had a good idea. I explained it to Dad and Andy.

"Oh, no, Allison," Dad said when I told him what he would have to do. "Anything but that."

"It's the only way, Dad," Andy said.

We finally got Dad to make the phone call. He handled it well, even though he was awfully embarrassed.

Then we got to work, urgently picking every zucchini. We hardly even noticed the east wind. Mr. Ballard arrived with his truck and his hired hand and helped us load the zucchini. Then he got his tractor and plowed under the zucchini vines. That was part of the deal.

"They'll make good fertilizer," he told Dad with a twinkle in his eyes. "What will you plant next summer?"

"Humph," Dad said, looking stern. But Mr. Ballard began to laugh and then Dad joined him, and they laughed themselves silly. I didn't see what was so funny. After all, hadn't Mom just been rescued from the brink of a nervous breakdown?

I don't know whether the pigs liked the zucchini. I didn't ask them.