Grow Perfect Zucchini Every Time! 💚
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- Опубліковано 23 вер 2024
- Want to put the ZHUZH in your zucchini? Put some COOOR in your courgettes? Well there are a few tricks of the trade you need to know first. Luckily, Ben, your friendly backyard gardener is here to the rescue with his top tips for growing Perfect Zukes every time! 💚
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I interplant zucchini with daikon radishes to avoid squash vine borers.
WhAaaaaaat...for how many seasons? How does it work out for you?
@@andreahorsch286 have been doing about 10 years. Nearly perfect results!
Interesting, I'll have to try that this year
interesting 🤨
Yes, this works. I did it one year and saw no issues until I harvested the radishes. Nxt thing you know, the squash bugs and vine borers got it.
Great video! I am in Australia, so my zucchini season has just come to an end. But I deliberately let some of mine go to marrow size, as then I can harden them off, and store for several months for winter eating. I also harvest the seeds from these to save for next year. I too think you can never grow enough zucchini! When they’re coming in every day, I grate them and put in zip lock bags, flatten them and stack in my freezer. Then I use them throughout the year in stews, pasta sauces, curries, quiche .. etc. I never buy zucchini, ever. I grow and preserve it for all year round use. So make sure you don’t give too many away! Haha
Cheers
Have you tried zucchini bread? It's a sweet, quick bread with cinnamon, clove and nutmeg. So delicious!
@@guardmommad5084 ooh no! I haven’t! Great idea! I will look up a recipe, thank you!
Susan what part of Australia as I am in Brisbane. Cheers Denise
@@denisebrady6858 I’m in Melbourne 😀
@@littlesuzie6672 Thanks
This is probably one of the best videos on courgettes I have ever seen. Chock full of good information without lots of blabber, I so appreciate that. Thank you so very much.
You're very welcome - thanks for watching. :-)
Several years ago, I was told to prune the zucchini for a couple of reasons, 1) to provide air flow and 2) to make the fruit easier to find. The fruits started yellowing before they were ready to pick. My local extension service told me that the yellowing was most likely caused by sun burn, they thought I was cutting away too many leaves. So I started only cutting out the bad leaves. I have not had that problem now for a couple of years.
I live in North America, specifically in the south where the bugs are abundant. I have not grown one zuke for a few years. I do have a plan this year When I lived in the cooler area I grew tons of zukes. I will now plant three times what I need and use Tromboncino, luffa and others that do not attract bugs as much. I should come out ahead. I have a dying little dog and a senior dog that I feed soup so my garden is devoted to my two dogs. They are living past all expectations. I never feed them dog food,,,, Another super video, thank you
That sounds like a good plan. I am sure your dogs will appreciate them too. :-)
One commenter here said interplant daikon radishes with zucchini for pest management. You should try it.
Thanks for the video, enjoyable and informative as always. I believe I read the plants put out the male flowers first to attract pollinators to the area as they remember where they got pollen and return there. Once the pattern is established then it's more likely the female flowers will be pollinated and aren't 'wasted' as it takes more plant resources to produce the females. This increases the number of pollinated fruits, which supports the plant's drive to propagate the species by maximizing the number of seeds for the next generation. Even with modern breeding the evolutionary drives are still present, just as overly mature fruit signals the plant to stop producing.
I will share a common saying here in the US Midwest: zucchini is so prolific that's the reason why people lock their cars when they go to church in August-to prevent their friends from sneaking extra zucchini into their cars while they're attending services. A more modern version is why doorbell cameras are so handy-you get to see who crept up and left that bag of baseball-bat sized zukes on your porch. If I can ward off the vine borers I'll be the worst offender.
My favorite is golden zucchini. It makes a lovely contrast with the dark green in a dish and it's straight and even, unlike crookneck squash.
Caramelize onions, put a layer in a shallow casserole and top with alternating slices of green and yellow summer squash and Roma tomatoes on an angle like this \\\\. Drizzle a little olive oil, salt and pepper and your favorite herbs and bake until tender. Beautiful and delicious.
Really interesting to learn about the reason for the male flowers - that makes good sense. Really interesting to read - thank you for sharing. And I LOVE the reason for locking the car!!!
I love growing mine vertically, helps with air flow and allows planting underneath.
how do u keep them main stem from breaking once they age a bit? --ty
@@bizzhat I have limited space and I grow mine vertically as well.
I use a very tall stake and tie the plant up as it grows. I also prune the older leaves starting at the bottom to promote new growth and allow for air flow.
It’s easier to water and not get the leaves wet this way too.
Once one got quite heavy and still broke, I gave it a clean cut and it started growing again.
I’ve grown both ways, I find it easier to maintain and harvest when they grow vertically, the leaves and fruit don’t sit on the soil.
Read through bunch of comments, and gotta say it's one big community of like-minded people. Wish you a great season 😉
Thanks so much - and it really is! It's a great community here - we're very lucky. :-)
Last year my zucchini didn't produce many zucchini but they were huge. Really huge. This year they're producing many more but smaller. I am learning a lot about soil health and nutrients.
I grow heirloom Black Beauties so I can harvest the seeds for next year. Thanks for all the tips!
I grew four plants last year - waaay too many for one person lol. One tip is to look really carefully into the plant when you're harvesting to get them all. It's really easy to miss them and then, before you know it, there's a two foot marrow sitting in there!
Great advice Alison. :-)
Great point because if 1 cucumber is left to ripen on the vine the plant will stop producing so its probably the same for zucchini and squash.
I create easier location by pollinators by removing leaves that are obscuring flowers, it definitely works as long as you don't remove too many leaves.
Zucchini is quite a good choice for container gardens because it has relatively shallow roots. A container that is around 12 inches deep should be sufficient. However, as a hungry plant, zucchini needs plenty of nutrients to grow and produce well. This means that the larger the container you can provide, the better.
Thank you for spreading such a positive energy! ☀️ I allways get in a good mood when watching your videos! 🤩🌱
Ahh, thanks Emil! :)
Love you and the doggie who is always by your side.
When I lived in Guatemala, they sold squash flowers at the markets. My MIL prepared them by dipping them in beaten egg and flour (I think). Delicious!
Yum!
Could you make a video all about picking good seeds? What seeds should we avoid? What should we look for in a good seed? What's the difference between all the varieties? Where do you get your seeds from? Thanks in advance!
Thanks Patrick. I'll certainly add that to my list of suggestions for future videos.
Awesome video as always, thanks for sharing and all you do! To help save money my family and I have started a small backyard garden. We're learning how to homecan, seed save, make compost, and preserve what we grow. Less than 2 years in our new home and we've completely transformed the backyard. We are beginner gardeners, growing and learning along the way. Recently I started a gardening channel to help encourage others to begin growing as well. No time better than now to learn self sufficiency. Thanks again for all you do, your channel definitely helps me stay motivated for my family. God bless!
So true - no better time for self-sufficiency than these crazy times. Keep up the great work also! :-)
I will be sowing some courgette seeds in the next few days. The pack says sow in April if indoors but May for outdoors. I also have to sow cucumber seeds because the cucumber plant I had was eaten by a pest and died on me. Another fantastic video Ben and great tips how to grow Courgettes. Keep safe, well and happy gardening.
Cheers David. Hope the second sowing of cucumber goes unmolested.
Hello Ben: Thank you for this video. I bought my two zucc plants at a nursery this year, I’m having issues where my fruit are aborting as you noted in the video. I did try to pollinate from a male to a female flower last week on one fruit, and I see that the female flower has now fallen off. I’m thinking I should pick, even though it’s only about 3 or 4 inches. I’ve also taken note of your comment that the plant is hungry. I’ll carefully add some nutrients. I may even lift the garden fabric and add some compost.
I must say that I listen to presentation all day at work - boring stuff - and I find your discussions to be crisp and to the point. I immediately paused and hit subscribe. As you Brits would say “cheers.”
Cheers so much for the sub! :-)
I really love the idea of the water bottles to water underground. I will definitely give that one a go.
I just did that for an early growing Zucchini. I hope I did it correctly without disturbing roots etc in the process. I also added leaves for heat protection.
Hi Ben, just discovered your gardening channel and subscribed immediately. I'm from Austria and I've been gardening for 30 years, but I can still learn a lot from you. There are many garden channels but yours is simply the best. Well-founded information, humorously presented, simply great. Thank you and please keep it up!
Eric - that's very kind of you to say, thank you. And welcome as a new subscriber! :-)
I grew zucchini for the first time last year and was pleasantly surprised by the abundance. I found that when I trimmed off leaves, slugs and other bugs would make a home in the exposed stalks which tended to hold a decent amount of water (I was still getting a good harvest so it didn't bother me).
We ended up using the zucchini in cakes which the children loved and experimented with fried zucchini chips, along with more standard butter and garlic sliced zucchini.
I'll probably plant them in their own spot next time so they can grow without overtaking other plants.
Great to hear you've enjoyed such abundance. You can never have enough zucchini - honestly!
I have the tiniest yard in the city - wish they could be alone! But mine are on top of the cabbage and roses and lillies. But those two flowers are past by the time the zucchini take off so they are green and pretty and climb within and around them which makes for an interesting look. All in my front yard - and the neighbors walking by always say how they love the yard. Thanks for the tip about the cutting stalks - i'll keep an eye out for that!
Thanks for your videos! You are so good at explaining exactly what we need to pay attention to and you are so very jollly, it makes my day!
Great video! Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I’m a beginner gardener. I’m growing Zucchini and as of today I noticed that they now have budding yellow flowers that haven’t opened yet. Looking forward to hopefully harvesting Zucchini at some point. I am using cedarcraft elevated self watering planter boxes.
Hope you get a good harvest soon. :-)
@@GrowVeg Thanks!
Stumbled across your channel a few months ago. Just planted my squash this morning. I love your channel my friend!
Cheers Mike, that's hugely appreciated. :-)
We are in North Carolina with a food bank garden. We have a terrible problem with the vine borer on our squashes, including zucchini. One suggestion is to grow varieties that are recommended as the least susceptible to the borer. In our case it is Romanesco (Italian and it looks like the one in your video) and butternut squash ''Waltham'; . We never have a prob lem with the borer with butternut squash because the stems are much thicker and the borer can't seem to get through.
Great advice - thanks for sharing Ellen.
I've had terrible problems with powdery mildew so am trying some resistant varieties (PMR) from Johnny's this year. Zone 7a Hudson Valley NY. Thanks for the many tips -- I knew that zuchs should be harvested young but not about harvesting when the flower is still on. We love zuchs grilled.
Another really informative and helpful video. We grow for just 2 people with very little space so 1 courgette plant is enough for us. I like the standard long green fruits, cut at 15cm ish. Found yellow and ball forming courgette plants to be significantly less generous with female flowers. Black flies seem to accumulate in newly opened flowers but once or twice a season I pick these flowers to poach, stuffed with a chicken mousseline or mushroom dacquoise. Mmmm. Salivating as I write ….. My plant will probably be hardened off this week so plan to prepare its space, complete with watering aid, today or tomorrow. I’ve used bottles to get water to the roots of cucumbers in the past but hadn’t thought of that for courgettes.
Love your recipes for the flowers Prune - yum!
I tend to agree. I like to grow the round ones because they are easier to hollow out, fill and bake or even cook in a broth. But as you say - you get a flurry of females at the start of the season but then it's mostly males or the females don't make to a decent size. The long ones, particularly the dark skinned ones are more generous.
I love the Allotment Planner in the 'see below'
This is the 1st time I have ever had an issue with no zucchini I got about 1 or 2 all last year! Why you ask WELL! My 8 year old cut off the growing tip lol oh well! Not to worry I had a TON of pati pan! And I still love her helping in the garden it’s so important to include them when they are young it’s work everything!
Absolutely. Getting the kids involved is so important. My nine-year-old sometimes 'helps' and it's all welcome! :-)
Great video Ben.
Courgettes are one of my favourite things to grow. Doing both the green and gold ones this year 👍
We generally plant 4 or 5 plants of different varities for grilling, frying, and baking in breads. At the end of the season, we let the final fruitings grow extremely large and use them as targets for sighting in our rifles for hunting season. USDA Zone 4, Wisconsin, USA.
That’s a really cool way to use the leftovers ! Love to hear about hunters in our country. We need more of it.
That’s a really cool way to use the leftovers ! Love to hear about hunters in our country. We need more of it.
I'd be really impressed if you were using the little ones for targets... just kidding. Love it. Very fun. Can't do that here (city) glad you can. Hunters rock. Keep on living the dream.
Thank you do much. Last year I struggled so much with growing squash. I live in Georgia, USA, and squash bugs and Squash Vine Borers were a BIG problem! This year year I am going to try every technique that I researched including wrapping the stems in aluminum foil. Wish me luck!😁
Very best of luck Sharon - I hope you'll ace it!
Hello from East Scotland! Thank you for your great video, I am Italian by birth but I never knew WHY some of my zucchini were not growing and rotting, the trick of pollinating them has solved a great mystery! Much obliged to you, GRAZIE!!
You're very welcome Gisella. :-)
Thanks Ben, have you thought about discussing solitary bees and how beneficial they are in our gardens. They are the perfect polinators and are so easy to create homes for. We have made many and each year we have literally thousands of bees over the summer period.
@@zsuira My wife has a UA-cam channel where some of our bee homes are shown. Here is one short clip ua-cam.com/users/shortsIhRbyJVk7d8 I will make a video and post it on her channel in a week or so showing how I make them. Basically, you need a log or similar and drill in a range of hole sizes from 2mm up to 9.5mm. This attracts a wide range of bees. I would suggest make the holes up to 4" deep. We always face our homes anywhere between South East to South West as this seems to give the best results. If you subscribe to my wife's channel, we will upload details as we have them ua-cam.com/channels/DN3W5F3BQPxpKiBBG8QsBw.htmlvideos
Thanks for the suggestion. We are hoping to do a pollinator special later in the summer/autumn to showcase all the wonderful bees etc.
Last year (first year of growing) Courgette was my most successful plant. Silly me planted 4 of them, and I reckon I was getting a good 5-10 courgettes a week! Was sick of them by the end of summer lol , and they need a massive amount of space!
Maybe two or three will suffice this year!
There’s a joke at out our allotment which is be prepared for an invasion of courgettes if you accidentally leave your car windows open. 🤣
Also, it is noticeable that people will go to any lengths to avoid meeting you if they see you have an armful of courgettes 🤣
Top show Ben, anyone can grow perfect courgettes after watching this.
Perfect Ben.
I think ur a brilliant teacher, u make it all so straight fowards and simple.
Thanks Ben.
Cheers John!
I have not had squash due to those pesky borers! I am doing this this year!!! Thank you for the hope!
Will try your suggestions for the vine borers. Used to grow incredible zucchini in TN without much effort - not able to grow any here in NC…. The vine borers win every year.
Hope you manage to beat them this year!
My absolute favorite zucchini variety is Costata Romanesco, I just can’t get enough of them. I fail to understand why nurseries here in the American Northwest only seem to carry the Black Beauty variety. The same is mostly true of grocery stores as well. Fortunately summer squashes are so easy to grow from seed!
This is my first year of summer squash and though some say they are easy, it seems more address the potential issues such as pests and mildew. Not sure what to think. 😏
@@rocio2917 my first year it was a nightmare. Mold, Mildew, lack of fertilizer, not enough water, then too much water. Man I was so frustrated. But I watched videos, and pulled out plants that were just to damaged and let the 1 or 2 that weren't keep growing. Eventually I got some fruit. Decided to do it again. Hey a pack of seeds or seedlings is cheap so let me try again. This year is going much better. I also planed in a windy place so lots of air flow, and happen to have radishes next to it not on purpose but by accident. Results are way better this year. Don't give up! And its ok to get rid of a plant if you tried everything and its not doing well. That doesnt make you a failure it makes the plant a failure, not you. Keep it up you'll get it.
@@TammyMerk Thank you! I am working on not giving up. I vacillate on the hope factor. Right now it feels like quite a bit of loss for all the work.
I've tried the foil tip, and never had much luck, but some of the old timer veggie growers in the area swear by it, and they seem to do very well. I think NC is home for every pest that enjoys munching on curcubits, so it's always a loosing battle.
My best solution was to cover my zucchini in a frame with a mosquito net, and hand pollinate.
Great idea Eddie.
I start all my seeds on my front porch in the shade. A few days before taking out to garden i will scoot the out to the edge in the sun. I haven't had any die after transplanting. I transplanted hundreds of plants this year of many kimds.
Good-day Ben!👋 This year I had my hubby build me a huge PVC cube which I covered with insect netting. My zucchini are growing in a sort of fruit cage. So far so good...the vine borer is around.
In past years I did wrap the base stem which worked for a good part of the growing season. I wrapped the base stems of my winter squash which are out in the open. This year I used panty hose instead of foil. I also heard about putting a paper cup around the base stem...supposedly the vine borer won't fly in there to lay her eggs.
I also planted a trap crop...Blue Hubbard which can withstand the attack by the vine borer and squash bugs a little better.
Rosie looked super cute nappingin the garden.🙂
I'm looking forward to next week's game changing tips. Ben, have a great week in the garden!🙂
Sounds like you're doing all the right tings to try and sidestep the dreaded vine borer. You have a great week gardening too. :-)
Sounds like you've found a way around the thought of leaving plants uncovered to enable pollinator access? Would love to know any helpful details as to how it worked.
@@rocio2917 It worked great! I got loads of zucchini hand pollinating. I figured out I needed to be in the garden by 7:30 to catch the flowers open. I also had ants helping to pollinate the fruit.
Right now the cage is over my acorn squash plants as I wait for the vine borer to exit our area...end of this month.
@@valoriegriego5212 Ahhh manual polination. Thanks for sharing. With hand pollination, is each female flower pollinated only one time and never again? I guess that would make sense because then the fruit for that flower is harvested and that is it for that flower. Newbie here.
@@rocio2917 Yes...as easy as you see on UA-cam videos. Also you can pollinate your female zucchini fruit with other varieties of squash if you don't have a male zucchini flower available. You can use pumpkin, acorn, etc.
Thank you Ben- just planted my first courgettes out today following your advice and protected them with a cloche ! All your wisdom is helping build my confidence growing veggies - to thank you 😊
That's wonderful to hear!
This is my second year of growing 'black beauty' courgette. This year my plants started putting out female flowers straight away! I've cut them off whilst small as i knew they wouldn't be good ones. Thankfully there are also male flowers now. Next year i would like to grow yellow courgette to add a little variety. I find that for myself and my wife, 1 big plant is enough, however, i have 2 growing this year as i now have a dehydrator so can deal with any extra courgettes, plus my second plant is a bit of a runt so i don't expect much produce!
Having a dehydrator to hand is really great for processing the excess. You can then add them into soups, stews etc. later in the year. Enjoy!
A second plant is good as it increases the odds of having both male and female flowers the same day
I definitely wasn't aware I could prune that aggressively. I ended up planting two varieties (Grey and Round) per the packaging directions which was three plants per mound, so now I've got quite a dense bit of zucchini to contend with.
Pruning really helps. I've been doing that a lot with mine due to mildew and it's really helped the plants along.
Size is not always the indicator I’m going to harvest. If your zucchini starts getting lumpy, that’s a good indicator that it’s trying to set seeds, so you should harvest any strange shaped ones while they are smaller. On the other hand, I have found that I can let my zucchinis get at least twice as big as you show in this video and the flavor and texture are still on point. Then you get twice as much as well because you just let them stay on the plan for like one more day. Costada is a premium variety from italy that tastes great and keeps well
Thanks for sharing your experiences there. I guess some varieties are much better at a larger size than others. I need to look out for your Costada!
Great & thorough video! Cutting up to 1/3 of the leaves really helped me! Cheers!
My favourite variety is Gold Rush, Yellow and with thin skin, Genovese light Green with white dots thicker skin and good for storing and black beauty dark green which are regular squash as in the supermarkets
This is a lovely video. I really enjoyed it. You have a great easy to understand way of explaining things that are very 😊😊😊😊and I feel that the zucchini plants I’m about to put out of my garden will be a lot healthier and happier. Thanks to your advice.
So pleased you enjoyed the video. Happy gardening! :-)
I haven't even finished the video but I thumbs up because of your enthusiasm in all of your videos :D
Cheers Keith! :-)
Can you do a video on sunflowers? I’m a new subscriber I’m unsure if you have one already
We'll consider that for a future video topic. In the meantime you might find this article handy: www.growveg.co.uk/guides/the-fun-of-growing-sunflowers/
Great video - I have just come upstairs from my garden with 3 beautiful zucchinis/ some wonderful onions & 2 Red Papayas. I have planted more Kohl Rabi & cabbage so very Happy with my day in the garden so far- peas going in the garden tomorrow. Cheers Denise- Australia
Sounds like a productive day. :-)
I grew 1 Zucchini plant this year --- it is a monster ---- its about 4 ft high and about 10 - 12 feet in circumference "huge dark green leaves" --- (It has been pumping out Zucchinis like a machine)! I forgot how much I love the taste! This 1 plant has given 40+ pounds of Zucchinis (gave many pounds away) --- so far -- and it's still going strong! Guess it really likes my soil prep from last fall. My Yellow straight neck gave about 10 and fizzled out🤷♂️.
Wow - it's a monster all right!
@@GrowVeg I think it's on it's way out now ---- no female flowers at all ------- all male flowers and the leaves are starting to disease -- I even sprayed with H2O2 and Baking Soda ---I'm considering pulling it out and replanting another I think there is enough time.
Ik had vorig jaar al mijn komkommers per ongeluk weg geven ipv gourgette plantjes ik haalde kruiwagens vol uit mijn tuin 😅 ik haalde bij een oud vrouwtje een handig snij machine en heb nog steeds gourgette uit iegrn tuin vanuit mijn diepvries
Dit jaar ga ik ook luffa's planten ❤
Leuke vlogs Ben! Het regent vandaag (alweer) dus had ik debtijd om wat filmpjes te kijken
Haha - jij hebt in ieder geval kunnen genieten van al die courgettes!
I start from seed in my greenhouse in AZ, zone 7B. Just got male flowers today! Fun!
Great job!
Thank you so much! That was helpful. Bring on the warm weather. (Wisconsin, USA)
Good information to know. California in southern my zuchini.is growing in a pot . its 2022 september and my 2nd zuchini is growing well. The length was 6" long. For bugs i use watered tea, dish soap& water mix.
I have been living around date palm trees. The male flower clusters, thokar, appear in January/February. Date palms are manually pollinated, but the female flower clusters don't appear until a month or more later. The thokar is collected, laid in the sun/heat to dry a bit, then set aside until needed. I have often wondered why there is this month or two delay between pollen production and pollen need. Trees are also unreliably pollinated by wind, but most trees require human intervention.
Interesting - that does seem like a bit of a design flaw of the date palm tree!
I dont think i have ever come across a plant that grows so vigorously as zuchini, well except for mint maye. Grew a couple last year and it was almost obscene. Only issue i had, which was left out in this vid was slugs. They went to town on the young fruits unless you kept it clean. Sweden here so no other bugs what i could see. Too bad i dont like zuchini tho. :)
Some how I managed to kill the mint. I'm in zone 9b and first killed it with neglect. The next batch i think I water logged and now I don't know what happened.
@@rocio2917 in warm climates it can be too hot and it gets too dried out, then too much water to try to compensate which rots the roots. That combo kills it. Ive done it. Now that i'm in boson zone 5a or 5b, the stuff runs rampant and yeah you can't kill it not that I'd want to. A lawn of mint would be my go-to lawn! Imagine the smell after mowing, or just walking through your yard...mmmm. For the mint in zone 9, give it a REALLY BIG pot so it can hold enough water. Best ofluck.
@@TammyMerk I'm finally getting a bit of a grip on the mint. I killed it and it's coming back. I admit the mint in the tote is doing the best.
wow i love how you explained how to tell male and female flowers
I'm Gorging on facts... Wednesday night is the last
Brilliant! :-)
I hope more folks in the UK try to grow fresh produce as the food shortages have made mainstream news. Good luck to everyone!
I've read seed sales are up a third on last year because of it!
I fry up tiny zucchini & female flowers that I did a quick dunk in pancake batter. So delicious! 😋
I live in Louisiana and squash borers are definitely a problem. I am trying a couple of plants. Got flowers and keeping my fingers crossed
I'll keep my fingers crossed for you too!
Ben, do you trellis your zucchini plant? Could you cover that at some point? Thanks for the step by step video!
I've tried this twice (flat trellis and tomato cage) with limited success. The stem is not very flexible and has its own ideas for direction.
I don't. But this is something I'd like to cover at some point, so watch this space!
@@GrowVeg Sounds good, Ben, thank you!
I have a small garden and find growing zucchini vertically works well. I train the plant up a sturdy pole at least six feet high. When the zucchini fruits and I harvest one I remove the leaves under. I do not have any problems with powdery mildew but have to be gentle but firm in tying the plant as it grows.
J
I love this technique - I haven't done it myself (yet!) but hope to give it a try soon.
I play so much DayZ that Zucchini videos are in my recommended. Thanks for the tips :D
My two favorite summer zuchinni to grow so far are Costata Romanesco and Cocozella Di Napoli but I've found that for me the Costata produce more and taste a little better. I haven't had any luck with Winter squash when I try to grow them. However, I've just found a pumpkin of some sort growing out of my compost! I'm probably way more excited than I should be but I've tried so hard to grow winter varieties and never can and its happened by happy accident. It's still unseasonably warm here in Humboldt county CA so I hope they have enough time to ripen!
Pumpkins and squash have a habit of growing out of compost. Hope you might be able to get a few fruits from yours.
@@GrowVeg Ive decided im putting seeds in the compost pile next year to try on purpose haha!
We love them, I have 8 balls, shooting stars and some Black Forest ones growing this year to add to the all bush greens!
This info is incredibly helpful, thank you! Precise (eg remove up to 1/3 of leaves at any time) and concise - no waffle. And after several years of occasional fruit rotting at flower end, finally a proper explanation! So many good details (eg all the reasons why removing leaves is helpful), and such an articulate presenter. Brilliant.
Three questions:
1. Can you please explain about what is meant by bush, trailing, compact etc? i find it all pretty vague and there's often not enough info on seed packets.
2. This year i have one plant, grown from seed, which i think said 'compact' on packet. It's enormous, though! Many huge leaves. It started fruiting rather late, compared with my partner's bought-in plant round the corner, which is still small but started fruiting almost indecently early. Can you explain this?
3. Is it possible to grow courgettes vertically, eg up arches to save ground space? If so, how and what kinds (see Q1!)?
Most courgettes form more of a bush - and they can get quite big! Compact varieties would be more restrained and therefore suitable for container growing. But you do also get trailing varieties, which stretch out and snake across the soil as they grow. The seed packets should give an idea of what type it is, but I agree - they can be a bit vague! Different varieties will start fruiting at different stages, so some variation in fruiting is to be expected. This video has tips on getting your courgettes to fruit: ua-cam.com/video/4Baj4vUXFMA/v-deo.html
You can grow courgettes vertically. Either tie in a trailing variety onto a really sturdy upright post. Or, alternatively, you can tie in a bush variety to an upright post as the summer progresses. This is because you often have to cut off the oldest leaves as they become damaged or affected by mildew. As you cut off the old leaves, new ones appear at the tip of the plant, creating a longer stem in the process. And it's the stem, as it elongates, that you can tie in to an upright post to lift the plant off the ground.
Good guidance and details. Thanks for sharing. Clearly supervising you in the garden is exhausting for your pup.
She works hard to keep an eye on things! :-)
Your videos are brilliant, thank you Ben 🙏🏼😁 Nameste
Thank you, and you're welcome. :-)
I love zucchini! I have seeds but not sure about planting them as I'm new gardener.
Hope this video has helped. 😀
You really are a joy to watch/listen to and an inspiration! 👍
Thank you :-)
You can eat the zucchini flowers too. They are a delicacy in Italy.
Fiore di zucca - my absolute favourite!
My zucchini all potted all wilted during hot summer, I will make it a tower like you showed in the other video so they will get more water and don’t dry out quickly 👍👍👩🌾 thanks Ben excellent video 😊
Thanks Emy. Hope next year's zucchini do better for you.
Ben, you're too much fun! Keep on edutaining us
Will do! :-)
Good timing. I'm planting my squash today
Fried male zucchini flowers.
YUM !
Great video. I'm surprised you went with milk for powdery mildew. It'll work, but dairy smells when it rots... at least for me. I just mix a gallon jug of Murphy's Oil Soap (which passes organic muster) and a tablespoon or two of cheap, old-fashioned baking soda. Works as well as milk without the stink.
Great advice, thank you.
You use 1 gallon of Murphy oil soap with the baking soda??
I wonder if this solution also works on violent far leftists, such as yourself and the group you represent.
@@sunnysideup57 I don't think he meant a gallon of soap, He meant a gallon jug, with some soap and some baking soda. Not sure, but not a lot, maybe an equal part as the baking soda. I've used this in the past but haven't had powdery mildew in awhile because I accidentally planted radishes, which replant themselves, and coincidentally the zucchini are nearby. Total accident but a happy one. FWIW, the spray has to be done relatively often for it to work because it has to be not too strong or it'll have negative effects like burning leaves. So a couple teaspoons or tablespoons to a gallon sounds about right. Hope it helps!
Excellent video. I like to grow Fordhook Zuke and Butterstick Squash along with everything else😀 Last year I found a zucchini at the back of a planter that was the size of a marrow! Tasted fine. Thanks for all the great vids, I am ready to put peppers out in my planters since it is 60F overnight now in 9b Sacramento, Ca. Thanks Ben.
You're welcome Stephen. Sounds like you've got some super varieties lined up there.
learning something new every time!
Question:
My zucchini plants tend to tip over with age/later in the summer due to longer (main) stem growth. I've tried to prop the up with straight sticks (loosely tied) or create some kind tipi-structure to keep the vegetables from growing into the ground or breaking off earlier - to no avail. any tips?
I just leave them to sprawl, removing the older leaves to keep plants fresh and healthy. But this year I may try tying a few to sturdy stakes to grow them up off the ground, though they will need regularly tying in. But this could be a tactic to stop thing breaking off. You'll need to harvest regularly while the fruits are still young though.
This year we are growing Fordhook zucchini and rampicante zucchini (italian variety). Hugs to your fur baby and happy gardening.
Thank you, Ben. Wonderful information as usual. I learned so much from this video.
Still the best video on summer squash 😍🙏
I've never grown any zucchini, but I'm going to try this year to establish a garden on my property, and zucchini will one of the plants I try out
Definitely worth growing - sooo rewarding I promise!
Hi Ben this is what I needed to know more about thanks so much from new Zealand
In Maryland, most moths of the squash vine borer have completed their lifecycle at the first of June. Last season I tried putting out plants later and had better success with longer harvests, regardless of the summer squash variety.
That is an idea too. They smell mine though!
Great idea June.
One can never have enough zucchini!
True that!
I realized why people say to plant squash on mounds. For cool climates it buys you a few degrees of soil warmth, which can make a big difference in certain growing zones.
Of course, since in the uk everywhere is hitting 36 degrees, that’s sorta redundant haha
@@funwithfish1507 maybe instead of convex mounds, concave :-)
You are entertaining. And good gardener too.
Thank you! :-)
I'm enjoying your videos very much Ben, thank you
Thanks for watching Michael.
Hi Ben, thank you very much for sharing, I planted 6 varieties last year but only 4 varieties this year 👍
Roger that, I have some Rooster pellets and hadn't thought about the greedy zucchini leaf gobbling up the soil nutrients.. i will give an extra handful on the pumpkin and corn as well thanks..
I soak our zucchini/pumpkin seeds in a cup of water and plant them in a day or 2, they sink when they get waterlogged, I put them in soil..
I'm going to grow our zucchinis vertical this year.. Tie to a 🍅 steak and save room in the garden. Hopefully less powdery mildue ..💧🌱
Also, if you let one grow into a marrow, you get magnificent mature seeds.
I've found I get more yield off a mature seed
Thanks for all these tips Ral - that's really handy. :-)
@@GrowVeg and thank you kind sir, for all of your magnificent tips as well. We grow and grow together.
PS. Oh my golly, I am so excited to be growing loofah (gauds?) for the first time. It'll be the first day of spring in a few days
I've used the foil this year and am prepared to inject stems with bt, if evidence of vine borers.
Thank you as always gr8 tips
I am a new gardener and am looking for the correct variety of zucchini for our harsh sw Florida sun.
Ask around local garden centers/nurseries, or see if you can get advice from a local Master Gardener (sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/lawn-and-garden/florida-master-gardener-program/). Hopefully you'll find some good first-hand advice on this.
I can't plant mine out, there's so many slugs here they demolish them rapidly so I try to grow them in tall containers off the ground, but still only get a handful of them. It's a small garden so I try to grow what will produce a good crop, so had to ditch peppers as I just couldn't grow enough, or they ended up rotting. So this year I'm trying just to stick to veg that I know will provide me with at least some food