Zucchini: It’s Not Just for Food

We have so many delicious zucchini recipes and such a respect for this three-star vegetable, but even we can respect that enough is enough. If your family just plain needs a break from eating this productively ambitious veggie, you don’t need to burden your neighbors with a quietly abandoned box of summer squash on the doorstep. Grab your kids and help them harness their imagination in the form of zucchini art.

Giant Zucchini
Giant Zucchini / Nick Ares / CC BY 2.0

Here are a few ideas we particularly like:

1. Practice your Jack-o-lantern skills for Halloween with this tutorial from Instructables.

2. Follow along with Chef Chang as he carves a zucchini shark.

3. Break out the craft box and build a zucchini racer with the help of Education.com.

4. Give the kids materials they can freestyle with and let their imaginations run wild with inspiration from Grow Creative.

Some of these projects require careful work with a sharp knife, so if your child is too young to handle a knife, you can assign them tasks such as gluing on decorations or scooping squash innards out with a spoon while you handle the “grown-ups only” tasks. Happy zucchini carving!