Zucchini are one of the easiest vegetables to grow, and therefore one of the most popular vegies for the home garden.

However, sometimes it can seem like they grow to mammoth proportions and overpower any plants in close proximity while your back is turned and you are preoccupied with watering the lettuces or weeding the beans!

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You need to harvest them every second day and need a library of cooking and preserving recipes as well as plenty of neighbours and friends to take the surplus off your hands.

Zucchini can be grated, sliced, chopped, left whole or even spiralled as a pasta substitute. It can be served raw or boiled, steamed, baked, roasted, grilled, barbequed, stir-fried, deep-fried or stuffed. They be used as a vegetable, and also in salads, slices, fritters, frittatas, cakes, muffins or breads. Excesses of zucchini can be preserved by freezing or making jams, sauces, relishes or pickles.

When you discover a zucchini that has been hiding behind the leaves and stems until it is absolutely enormous and not really fit for human consumption, simply slice them lengthways and put them out, cut side up, for the chooks. And, of course, they can be composted or added to the worm farm.

It's best to keep harvesting cucumbers, marrows and zucchini while the vegies are still young. They have a much better flavour and regular picking encourages more flowers and fruits to continue the crop into autumn. Keep the water up so things keep growing.

If your cucumbers, zucchini, squash or pumpkins are overwhelming your garden, prune them to contain them in the space you have allotted them.

Most varieties will set 5 - 8 fruits per plant and once they have set that amount, you can start to prune to keep them from invading the lettuces and tomatoes.

Find the fruit that is furthest out on the vine, leave a couple of growing points past that fruit and cut or pinch off the rest of the vine at that point.

This will limit the number of fruits on that vine, but the ones already growing will grow bigger.