Squash & cucumbers
Zucchini (summer squash)
Two fast rounds; pick small and often.
- Outside
- Direct late Mar to Apr, again late Jul to early Aug
- Where
- Raised bed or in ground
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Deep weekly soak; skip rainy weeks; more in August
- Harvest
- May to Jun, then Sep to Oct
Care
- Water
- Deeply and about weekly, an inch that wets the soil 6 inches down, in the early morning on the soil; skip any week that brings half an inch of rain, and step toward the county's 1 to 2 inch August target while the fall round runs. Water the soil, not the leaves.
- Sow
- Direct sow, never transplanted: hills of 2 to 3 seeds a half inch deep thinned to the strongest, 5 to 6 feet apart. Late March to April for the spring round; the fall round goes in late July to early August, fastest variety on the shelf under the county's 60-day cap.
- Feed
- A shovel of compost worked into each hill starts it; a hungry plant, so feed fish and seaweed liquid every 2 weeks once the vines run, nitrogen light. Hold all feeding through the July-August heat; the fall round gets a light feed as it starts to run.
- Ready
- Cut at six to eight inches, glossy and small, every day or two; miss three days and the result is a club and a pause in setting. Any that hid should still come off, or the plant treats its job as done. The spring round runs to the June heat; the fall one picks to frost.
- Trouble
- Sudden wilt with sawdust frass at the stem base: squash vine borer, the state sheet's named trouble, controlled by prevention with Bt before larvae enter the stems. Flowers held through the mid-June to early September gap: normal, the plant sets again once nights cool.
In a bag?
- Yes
- Up to a 5–10 gal bag.
- Water
- Daily through summer, twice a day in a heat wave, water until it runs from the drainage holes; give the bag afternoon shade or 30 to 50 percent shade cloth, and set it on soil rather than a hot deck.
- Feed
- Dilute liquid feed on the watering calendar, leached weekly with plain water; hold the feed when days top 90F.
- Sow
- One plant per bag at the Texas container guide's 5 gallon minimum for squash, and the bigger bag is kinder in this heat.
Zucchini runs twice here, two fast rounds around the heat: a spring sowing picked into June, then a late-July sowing that fills through October. Pick small and pick often.
Growing
Two rounds dodge the gap: sow late March to April and the plants finish a full picking window before the mid-June heat closes it; sow again late July to early August and the fall plants set as September's nights cool, filling into October ahead of the mid-November frost. The county caps fall warm-season sowings at 60 days, so the fall round wants the earliest variety on the shelf. Sow in hills and thin hard, water at the base, and mulch deep before the heat arrives.
Varieties
The state sheet names a deep zucchini list: Ambassador, Aristocrat, Eight Ball, El Dorado, Goldfinger, Gold Rush, President, Senator, Sure Thing, Tigress and Zucchini Elite, with Dixie and Early Prolific leading the yellow summer squash side of the same family. For the fall round, read days to maturity and take the fastest name.
Pests
Squash vine borer is the named trouble in the Texas sheet, and the control named there is prevention: Bt before larvae enter the stems. The heat gap does the rest of the pruning; the spring round hands off to the fall one, and a plant still holding flowers in July is on schedule, not sick.
In the kitchen
Calabacitas is the destination the research names: diced and simmered with corn, chile and onion, the summer side dish that never repeats. Grilled planks and fritters absorb what the skillet misses, and the state sheets file squash as the ground-cover third of the Three Sisters with corn and beans.