Squash & cucumbers
Zucchini (summer squash)
Hungry plant, pick often.
- Indoors
- 3 to 4 wk in peat pots (late Apr)
- Outside
- Direct after frost, late May
- Where
- In ground or raised bed
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Every 3 to 4 days in July; soak at the base, not the leaves
- Harvest
- 45 to 55 days, pick small
Care
- Water
- Every 3 to 4 days through July and August, every 5 to 7 in spring and fall. A long soak at the base until the top few inches are damp, then let the top inch dry before the next. Water the soil, not the leaves, since splashed foliage spreads disease.
- Sow
- 2 seeds a half inch deep per peat pot, snip the weaker at the soil line once true leaves show. In the bed, sow hills of 3 or 4 seeds 5 to 6 feet apart and thin to the strongest, or a single row thinned to 8 to 12 inches.
- Start inside
- Mat at 85F; cucurbit roots hate disturbance, so peat pots that plant whole. Sprouts fast in that warmth, off the mat as soon as it does, then under the lights 14 to 16 hours. Outside once the soil holds 70F, late May.
- Feed
- A shovel of compost or castings worked in at planting starts the bed. A hungry plant, so once the vines run and flower, feed fish and seaweed liquid every 2 weeks. Ease off the nitrogen after fruit sets, since excess invites blossom end rot.
- Ready
- Cut them small and glossy, before the skin hardens or the seeds bulk up; picking daily through July and August keeps fruit setting. Any that hid and swelled should still come off, or the vine treats its job as done.
- Trouble
- Sudden wilt and sawdust frass down at the base: squash vine borer in the stem, collar it in foil at planting and hold row cover on through bloom. Bronze egg clusters under the leaves: squash bugs, scrape them off and set a board by the vine to trap adults overnight. Chewed seedlings: cucumber beetles that also spread wilt, net young plants and hand-pick in the cool morning.
In a bag?
- No
- A single summer-squash plant grows big, thirsty, and wide-leaved, and wants more root room than a 15 gal bag holds; a bag that size dries out and starves it by midsummer. Give it a bed corner or the open ground.
One zucchini plant, honestly managed, feeds two people from July through September. It earns a bed corner or the open ground and repays the space in absurd volume.
Growing
Direct sow in late May, or start peat pots three to four weeks ahead in late April, since squash sulk when their roots are disturbed. One plant to a spot in the bed or the ground with compost worked deep; it is a hungry plant and says so with pale leaves and a stalled counter. Water deeply at the base rather than overhead; overhead watering wastes half of it and splashes soil-borne disease up onto the leaves. Pick at six to eight inches every day or two; miss three days and the result is a club and a pause in production.
Varieties
Dunja and Green Machine are productive and shrug off mildew longer; Costata Romanesco trades some yield for the best flavor of the type.
Pests
Squash vine borer is the killer: the moth lays at the stem base in early summer, and the first symptom is a wilted plant with sawdust frass at the soil line. Wrap the lower stem in foil at planting or keep row cover on until flowering, and tuck in one insurance sowing at the end of June; the borers fly early, and a later plant usually escapes the worst. Striped cucumber beetles and squash bugs turn up too; crush the bronze egg clusters and drop adults into soapy water.
In the kitchen
Grilled in planks, grated into fritters, and folded into bread when the counter overflows. The blossoms are a crop of their own if picked male and early.