I know some of you are happily harvesting zucchini now. I, on the other hand, was so tomato-obsessed that I got my zukes in late. They are blooming now, and I hope to have zucchini very soon.

But you know the story with zucchini. You look forward to it, you enjoy it the first five to ten times you harvest it, and then you curse yourself for planting so much zucchini. I am not a very creative cook, so I tend to do three things with my zucchini:

• Steam it.
• Grill it.
• Make zucchini bread.

Yes, I know. Wow. Luckily, my fellow About.com Guides are much more creative in the kitchen than I am. Here are a few of their recipes that I am definitely going to be trying this year.

• Zucchini Ribbon Noodles with Red Pepper Coulis. This recipe from Culinary Arts Guide Danilo Alfaro is a creative take on using zucchini. It sounds absolutely delicious. And it has my steamed zucchini totally beat in the presentation department...
• Zucchini Tomato Casserole. This dish from our Italian cuisine Guide, Kyle Phillips, uses two ingredients we are sure to have in abundance in the next couple of weeks, and looks pretty simple to make.
• Grilled Vegetable Panini. If sandwiches are your thing, this panini recipe from About.com Busy Cooks Guide Linda Larsen is sure to please.
• Stuffed Zucchini. You can stuff anything with cheese, and it's pretty much a sure thing that I'll like it. This recipe from our Southern Food Guide, Diana Rattray, sounds perfect.
• Two words: Zucchini Cookies. I am there!

I hope these recipes give you a few ideas for making use of all that zucchini. And, if you can't use them, consider donating them to a local homeless shelter.

What are your favorite ways to cook zucchini?

Yes. I love yellow jackets. Even after getting stung by one last weekend. And why do I love them? Because they hunt and devour cabbage worms. This fellow spent a couple of hours hovering over my Brussels sprouts as if they constituted his very own all-you-can-eat buffet. And, considering how many cabbage worms I saw nibbling the foliage, I guess they were.

We watched this particular yellow jacket devour not only tiny worms, but rip into a fairly big worm and carry parts of it away with him. I guess we were invading his space and he wanted to eat in peace. Fine with me.

This is another reason we should try not to freak out when we see creatures we would normally consider to be "pests" in the garden. While I hate it when they disrupt our back yard barbecues or sting me for innocently weeding my front garden, I'll take all the help I can get with my cabbage worms!

There is no such thing as a weekend off.

I was reminded of this over the long 4th of July weekend. I took time of from writing, as well as most housework and even gardening to just kick back and relax with my family. We had a great party on the 4th, and I finally managed to finish reading a novel.

But it's Monday, which means it's time for life to get back to normal. I headed out to the garden this morning to see how everything's coming along, and to snap a few photos, and my eye lit on a big, fat cabbage worm on my broccoli. Of course it was big and fat. It had managed to eat most of a very large broccoli leaf, and had apparently spread to word to its no-good friends about the Brassicas buffet in my yard. A quick scan showed that there were cabbage worms all over my broccoli, and a few on the Brussels sprouts across the path. I grabbed my trusty cup of soapy water and went to work.

About an hour later, I had a cup full of small to largish to rather huge cabbage worms. My husband even took a few inside to meet their demise as breakfast for our turtle, Bowser. It's hard for me to feel sorry for them.

I had been keeping tabs on the cabbage worm situation. As soon as I heard the first gleeful "Ooh, Mommy, look at all of the pretty white butterflies!" from my four-year-old, I started monitoring for the little buggers. I wiped countless tiny eggs off of the undersides of the leaves, only to watch the butterflies laying more eggs right before my eyes. Needless to say, I was torn between admiring this admittedly fascinating process and dreading all of the baby broccoli nibblers I would be dealing with as a result.

So, I'll be spending the next few mornings hunting for cabbage worms. That's all right. As far as garden tasks go, it's not especially difficult, and it definitely gives me the chance to get up close and personal with my Brassicas.

I was surprised, after my post last week on removing weeds from sidewalk cracks, to find an email in my inbox from a representative at Scotts, who, of course, are the makers of Roundup. The sender, Brian, with a Scotts.com email address, had this to say:

"I am surprised you recommended hand-pulling dandelions. The roots can grow to 2 feet in length. If you leave snippet in the ground, it grows back. That sounds like a recommendation for futility."

My first, head-shaking thought was, "what, I should be telling people to spray it with Roundup?" Which is, of course, exactly what Scotts Miracle Gro, makers of Roundup, want us to say.

I have a couple of responses to this. First, I'll address the issue of dandelion removal. Then, I'll address the larger issue why, exactly, this company drives me batty.

On the issue of dandelion removal: Yes, Brian of Scotts.com, if you don't get the entire taproot, dandelions may very well come back. I may need to pull it out again. This is, of course, if I choose to pull it at all, given the fact that dandelion greens are absolutely delicious and their blooms are favorites of many pollinators. I think that, in general, someone who writes for or reads a website about organic gardening sees a bigger picture than just waging battle on weeds. And this week, my devotion to pulling rather than spraying was made even stronger thanks to an article published in Scientific American.

For those of you who haven't heard about the article, a French team studied the effects of Roundup's inert ingredients (you know---the ones that aren't supposed to have any effect other than helping the glyphosate do its job) and found that one of them, polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA, was more deadly to human cells than glyphosate itself. Specifically, it killed human embryonic, placental, and umbilical cord cells. And this was accomplished even when researchers used concentrations that were even more diluted than what is commonly used in residential gardens.

Monsanto, who owns Scotts Miracle Gro, responded that the methodology of the study was not realistic (the researchers applied Roundup to human cells in petri dishes, which is the way most studies to determine toxicology are performed). They contend that the product is safe. Glyphosate is considered to be a low-level toxin. However, this is the first time a study has been done looking at the effect of glyphosate when combined with one of Roundup's inert materials. The results are, in a word, scary.

And here's where I rant.

Miracle Gro has been trying, for a while now, to create an appearance of a "green," environmentally-friendly company. They have tried to appear to be the magnanimous giant, helping the citizens through donating money for community gardens and launching an organic line of products. And, when I write a short, simple post about getting rid of weeds in your sidewalk, they have the nerve to take me to task for recommending pulling rather than dousing with their chemicals.

You want an exercise in futility, Brian from Scotts.com? Here's one for you. Write to me again. Try to change my mind. Try to convince me, a woman of child-bearing age with small children, that I should use your product. You'll find getting rid of dandelions to be a much, much easier task.