What's Wrong With Zucchini

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Last year, the vagaries of the weather became the reason that for many gardeners, zucchini bloomed well, but did not bear fruit well, or even completely rotted. This summer in the first half also did not please with a warm temperature at night. What do you need to know about caring for zucchini so that they succeed this time?

If the zucchini blooms, but does not bear fruit

The first mistake a gardener can make is the wrong choice of culture for his site. Many more easy-to-maintain hybrids have been created through the efforts of breeders, and it would be a wise decision to take advantage of the results of their labors. What hybrids should you pay attention to?

First of all, these should be parthenocarpic varieties. Their peculiarity is that they are able to set fruits without pollination. And in rainy weather, when pollinating insects take a "day off" or go "on vacation" altogether, the gardener will not have to do their work, manually transferring pollen from one flower to another.

Some summer residents go for such a trick as placing honey plants next to the beds. Arriving at their favorite flowers, the bees will also visit the zucchini.

What will the color of the zucchini tell you?

You can learn a lot about the properties of zucchini by the color of their skin. Imported white zucchini has a delicate flavor and thin skin, but does not last long. But they have other advantages - they bear fruit well and are resistant to cold snaps. But domestic ones with the same color are thicker and can lie for a long time after harvesting and not deteriorate.

Green-skinned zucchini, if allowed to grow large, also coarser on the outside and can be stored until winter. The yellow ones are slightly softer and lie less.

Grow zucchini "bush"

Another advice from experienced gardeners is to give preference to bush zucchini, rather than climbing ones. The latter spend additional time and energy on the growth of the lash and the formation of flowers. And in bush, when the rosette is formed, a whole bunch of flowers and ovaries immediately appears in the axils. This also has a positive effect on the development period, and you do not have to "catch" zucchini, which are spreading over the beds, asking to "visit" their neighbors in the garden.

Sowing and planting zucchini

Zucchini is grown both by sowing in open ground and through seedlings. In the latter case, the plant turns out to be more vulnerable to cold snaps when transplanted into beds. Seedlings should be planted at 25 days of age. And they need to be moved into open ground when the weather forecast does not promise return frosts. Therefore, you should not rush to sow seeds for seedlings in March and even in April.

A dry, sunny place is assigned for a garden bed with zucchini. Try to arrange them so that they are not shaded by tall trees and dense bushes, buildings or fences. Here you can not wait for the appearance of female flowers.

An uncultivated area with dense soil or damp soil is not the best conditions for growing zucchini, because here the plants also bloom mainly male flowers. To remedy the situation, they arrange high beds. By the way, on the packaging with parthenocarpic hybrids, instead of this term, it is sometimes indicated that these plants form mainly female flowers - those on which ovaries are visible under the petals.

On poor sandy soils, squash is also uncomfortable. Here the land dries up quickly. You can improve the quality of the soil by introducing rotted manure or matured compost. Zucchini, like cucumbers with pumpkins, respond well to these fertilizers.

As for top dressing, they are required on poor soils. In order not to go broke on expensive fertilizers, it is easy to prepare them yourself. One of these effective free dressings is herbal nettle infusion. And so that in the heat the plant does not overheat, and moisture from the soil does not evaporate, it is recommended to mulch the beds.