Although considered to be a vegetable, zucchini - otherwise known as courgettes - are actually the immature fruit of a marrow squash – more specifically, the swollen ovary of the female flower. Zucchini can be yellow, green or light green, and generally have shape similar to a ridged cucumber, although there are a few cultivars available that can produce a rounded or bottle-shaped fruit.
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Zucchini prefer heavier soils, and will always do best in a sunny, sheltered position - away from cold winds. When it comes to preparing the ground, it is well worth adding plenty of well rotted farm manure before hand – in fact, this can be done as early as the previous autumn.
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If you intend starting early, you can protect an early planting with cloches. It is a good idea to put your cloches in place where you plan to plant your zucchini plants a couple of weeks before you need them as this will to help warm up the soil below. Doing this will greatly increase your early planting chances of success.
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If you are going to sow your zucchini from seed directly into the ground then you can do this any time from early May onwards – around about the time of the last late frosts. With cloches you can sow zucchini seed up to three weeks earlier.
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The trouble with zucchini is that they like lots of moisture around the roots, but ironically the plants can rot off if there is too much moisture around the base of the plant. To try and overcome this, zucchini are often grown on ridges in order to improve drainage – how to make a zucchini ridge is outlined as follows.
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Begin by digging a small trench about 4 inches deep, then fill the bottom of this trench with well-rotted farm manure until the trench is refilled back to its original soil level – now dig over the trench so that the compost and soil is nicely mixed. Now dig a second trench next to this first one placing the soil along to top of the original trench so that you a have formed an elongated mound. This will form a ridge into which the zucchini seeds can be planted into - 3 ft apart. Alternatively, if you are only growing a few zucchini plants, just make one individual mound per plant roughly 1ft 6in square. These mounts do not need to be too high - no more than a few inches at most.
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When sowing zucchini seed outside, sow two seeds per planting position – covering with ½in of soil. Each planting position should be about 3 ft apart. When the seeds have germinated they can be thinned out by removing the weaker of the two vigorous seedlings. If you are transplanting zucchini seedlings, then they should be planted into the ridge at the same depth as they were in the pot.
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Zuchini require plenty of water so that they are able to grow and fully develop so soak the roots thoroughly and regularly. However, try to keep as much water as you can away from the foliage to help prevent the incidence of fungal infections.
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2 comments:
I had to laugh when I read your title, "How to Grow Zucchini". I purchased a packet of seeds for ten cents at a Dollar Store and planted them haphazardly all over my yard. Every single seed sprouted and I'm already filling my freezer with my early crop. I love Zucchini Bread and look forward to having lots of it this Winter. I also enjoy sharing my bounty with friends and neighbors. I really enjoy your site. Blessings!
i find that my zucchini grow good then the melon gets about 6 inch long and turns yellow. therefore rots.
this has happened the last few years now and cannot figure why
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