Zucchini

Zucchini work reasonable well here, although I haven’t had anything like the bumper crops we had in Switzerland. Which is partly a good thing, because we can’t get quite as sick of them as we did there.

In this Mediterranean garden, Zucchini plants always grow big but most fruit grow unevenly –  big on one end, thin and pointy on the other end which also grows soft quickly after picking.

Since the zucchini are shaded and get watered deeply every 3 days or so – just like the rest of the vegetable garden – watering should not be the only reason causing the deformity. It must be also a problem of insufficient pollination. High temperatures combined with water stress are supposed to affect pollination. When it gets too hot (over 32 C) bees cease to or slow their pollinating efforts. If pollination does occur it may result in unevenly formed fruit.

I will try watering every day and hand-pollinating to see if this changes results.

Type and Taste of Zucchini

In the past two years I’ve tried dark green, light green, and yellow varieties in different beds in the garden. The dark green one had the typical Zucchini flavor but developed very few fruit altogether, except for one of those dreaded baseball bats suddenly appearing under the sage. The light green one produced a lot of small to mid-sized, very bland-tasting fruit. It had to be taken out and replaced mid-season because the plant was growing like crazy, leaning out of the raised bed and threatening to break off. The yellow one also produced a lot of smallish to mid-sized, juicy fruit with excellent taste. This will be my go-to variety next summer when I will then hopefully also remember what it is called…

Powdery Mildew

They all tend to get the usual powdery mildew in the height of summer but I’ve found it to be manageable with regular milkwater sprayings. By late September they were both finished and had to be taken out.