Celebrate “National Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day” (August 8) the right way by mastering the art of growing zucchini, crookneck, and other summer squashes that boast perfectly tender skin and luscious summertime flavor. In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know to grow zucchini and summer squash from seed, how to keep these plants in containers or your garden, and how and when to harvest zucchini to maximize yields!
Note: All types of summer squash require very similar care and the tips in this guide can be applied to zucchini, yellow summer squash, crookneck squash, pattypan squash, and more.
Harvesting
When to Harvest
Most varieties of zucchini and summer squash take about 60 days after planting to start bearing fruit and those fruits are usually ready to be picked about a week after flowering. That said, there is some variabiliy in harvesting times, so always check seed packets for more exact information.
For best flavor and texture, harvest zucchini and squash when the fruits are about 6 to 8-inches long. Larger fruit can look impressive, but it has little flavor and the skins get quite tough. Once fruiting begins, check zucchini plants regularly and often as it’s easy to overlook a hidden zucchini and wind up with massive, but tasteless, fruit!
How to Harvest
When harvesting, cut zucchinis off the vine with a sharp knife and leave about 1-inch of stem attached to each fruit. Resist the temptation to harvest zucchini by pulling on the fruit as this can damage your plant.
If your zucchini are producing too well, you can slow down production by harvesting the fruit when it’s still small or removing all the male flowers. Zucchini flowers are perfectly edible and can be used as salad toppers or stuffed, battered, and fried. Towards the end of the season, harvest all remaining zucchini before frost hits as the plants and fruit won’t survive a cold spell.
Storage
Fresh zucchini and summer squash has a relatively short shelf life and can be stored, unwashed, in a plastic or paper bag in your fridge’s crisper drawer for about 10 days. If you end up with more zucchini than you can use straight way, you can also pickle it or blanch and freeze it for up to 3 months.
Types
Zucchini come in bush-type forms, which are best for containers and growing in rows, or vining-type plants that can be grown on trellises. Here are popular picks and what makes each stand out.
- ‘Cocozella (di Napoli)’: A heirloom zucchini with dark green, slender fruits and excellent flavor.
- ‘Goldbar’: A yellow summer squash variety with a sweet and nutty flavor.
- ‘Ronde de Nice’: A funky, French heirloom, this plant produces globular fruits — and lots of them!
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Comments
It's recommended to plant winter squash in Aug. if you live in central FL. Sept. planting if you live in southern FL. You may have to cover your plants if you have an early frost. With some luck you may be able to harvest a few butternut squashes before winter.
Especially if you live in the South, the green worms in the fruit might be pickleworms--pale green with brown heads, up to about 3/4" long. They might have reddish-brown spots, depending on the stage of larval development. To help prevent them from boring into the fruit, spread mulch around or keep the fruit off of the ground. They like to feed at ground level. They might also tunnel into flowers, buds, and stems, but prefer the fruit. A larva will eventually spin a thin cocoon, perhaps rolled in a leaf, and pupate. Adult brownish-yellow moths emerge in about 7 to 10 days; they are active at night. Early-maturing varieties are good to combat pickleworm, so that they mature before the peak of the pickleworm population. Also, because the moths are active at night, covering the squash with row cover overnight will help to prevent them from laying eggs on your squash. Remove the cover during the day, to allow pollinators such as bees to visit the flowers. Some varieties of squash are more resistant to pickleworm, such as Butternut 23, Summer Crookneck, Early Prolific Straightneck, and Early Yellow Summer Crookneck.
For more information, see:
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/veg/pickleworm.htm
If the larvae you see are not pickleworms, perhaps they are melonworms? Green larvae, usually with two white stripes (depending on larval stage). But these usually attack leaves, or sometimes the surface of the fruit. It's less common for them to tunnel into the fruit. See:
http://ipm.ncsu.edu/AG295/html/pickleworm_melonworm.htm
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/veg/leaf/melonworm.htm
Hi, Blue Gum: Yellow squash and zucchini certainly will cross polinate, but the results are usually not seen until the fruit that grows from cross pollinated seeds in the following year. So this may be something that was in your seeds. It also might be because some sort of stress is changing/expanding the tiny amount of green that is on yellow sunbursts anyway. Sounds like cross pollination at some point, though.
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Research has shown that mulching with newspaper topped with straw works best. Tightly secured row covers will add extra protection against the adult moth to lay eggs close to the squash plants.