Growing Zucchini: Plant This Popular Plant in Your Backyard Garden

Zucchini is one of the most popular vegetables to grow in a back yard garden. It is very useful in preparing meals and it is an outstanding producer. Just one or two plants will produce enough zucchini for a family during the summer. It is a member of the Cucurbita family which also includes squash and pumpkins. It is considered a summer squash because it has a soft, edible skin.

Planting

The best way to plant zucchini is to create hills by mounding earth up about 8 inches high in a 10 to 12 inch diameter area and plant 5 to 6 seeds in each hill. Plant seeds once all danger of frost is over in your area. Hills should be at least 2 feet away from each other but if you have the room place them 3 feet apart. Zucchini will vine out and cover the ground around the hill. As the seedlings grow keep 2 or 3 of the best in each hill and discard the others.

If you really want a lot of zucchini you can get a jump on the season and start the plants indoors. About 1 month before the last expected frost place one seed in a small peat pot. Place it in bright sunlight and water when it gets a bit dry. You should see a sprout in less than 2 weeks. Once the plant has 3 to 4 leaves you can plant them outside if the out door temperature will no longer get down to freezing. If you have some time before that happens just place them, peat pot and all in a bigger pot with more planting medium.

It is good to get your plants used to the outdoors before you actually plant them in the ground so you can start by placing your plants outside during the day in a shady area and taking them back in at night when it gets cold. Do this for several days, then move your plants to where you will be planting them and leave them there a day or two taking them in at night. Once freezing weather is past you can plant them in hills, one per hill, and get on with gardening.

Cultivating

You will soon see that zucchini plants spread. Keep them away from other plants even if you have to cut them back or they will take over your garden. One way to solve this problem if you don’t have a lot of room is to grow zucchini vertically. Grow zucchini near a wall or fence and attach a panel of wooden or plastic lattice securely to it. You will have to train the vine to start moving up the lattice by taking it and weaving it for a portion of the way up. The vine will be very heavy so you may have to actually nail the lattice to the wall or fence.

Zucchini isn’t picky about soil, it will grow just about anywhere. Think twice before deciding to fertilize zucchini unless your soil is really depleted of minerals. Zucchini grows fast and big on its own so it generally doesn’t need any help. What it does need is well drained soil, full sun, and enough water to keep it from wilting during hot days. Soon you will see in addition to all the large green leaves, bright yellowish orange flowers. In order for fruit to set you need male flowers and female flowers. The female ones have a ball behind them attached to the stem. This will develop into the zucchini vegetable. The male flowers do not have this lump and will have a straight stem. Some say to pluck all but a few of the male flowers to enhance the development of more female flowers but in most cases you will have plenty of fruit set and you don’t even have to worry about this. Once the flower has been pollinated it will wilt and die back leaving a long cylindrical green zucchini that will continue to grow.

The copyright of the article Growing Zucchini in Vegetable Gardens is owned by Deborah Harding. Permission to republish Growing Zucchini in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Jul 25, 2009 1:38 PM

Guest :

My zucchini plant has lovely green leaves and beautiful orange yellowish flowers. Once the blossom opens up it shrivels up and falls off. That is it. I see no zucchini. Why does it do this??

Aug 9, 2009 11:18 AM

Deborah Harding :

There can be 2 reasons for your delemma.
First, your plants might be only producint male flowers (see article for explanation of male and female flowers). The main function of the male flower is to produce pollen to polinate the female ones. I once had an entire crop of zucchini that only produced a few female flowers. It happens. Male flowers will just wither and die.
The other reason could be a problem with polination. Female flowers have a little ball behind them that becomes the fruit. There is a real problem with bees who are the main polinators. They are dying because of insecticides being used on plants they frequent. If the bees don't polinate you will see all your flowers fall. If you see an absence of bees you may have to get a small paint brush and take the pollin from male flowers and paint them on the stamins of the female flower for them to produce fruit.