Ahhh there has been more than success this year in harvesting in the garden and we are only getting started here in the start of July. This week I was able to snap off my first zucchini which seems ready for the cooking.
Since growing zucchinis is not the most difficult thing to do if you are not getting any pest into there, I think these plants might just be on a beautiful start of giving a lot more over the upcoming months!
It is time to start thinking what I will want to do with all of these zucchinis, since I think a lot more will be on the way. I am thinking food wise of course. Sure soup is an option, and I remember from in Greece that they have these nice fried zucchini balls together with some tzaziki. That also might be an option to make from them, next to the obvious of making slices and sticking them in the oven.
The growing journey towards here has been a quite easy one actually, not one with a lot 'growing pains' (get it?? haha) as this doesn't take a lot of maintenance.
Looking back I have planted these seeds in the beginning of May. With a little overnight soak to make the shell of the seed a bit softer and then sticking it into the ground, this worked quite good.
You can see some other plants here which are all cucumber seeds from start. Unfortunately, none of them is still around as they all got burned by the sun eventually. Those guys are sensitive in the beginning!
Moving on to when these seedling got a lot bigger I let them get used to the sun a lot more which is called hardening off and that is when they truly started to grow fast.
This was also the moment where I tied the plant up for a bit because it was getting heavy and where I was also able to see these white patterns on the leaves.
Now last year I had my pumpkin plant going down to something called mildew or blight and that was like a powdery sort of issue.
This white pattern was only on top of the leave and it looked like you were able to see through the leave.
A little interset searching session told me that this was completely normal and very typical for a zucchini plant actually.
Then the time reached about two weeks ago where the first flowers were into the plant. These plants like pumpkins as well have male and female flowers and there needs to be some action between them to get everything pollinated.
This is a female flower where you have more lobes where the pollen can land on. These flowers only open in the morning and they only do tat for like 2 or 3 days, so you have to be sharp on what is going on.
You can snap off the male leaves which only have 1 tower with pollen in the flower and rub of on the female one.
Or what I did was snap off the entire tower with pollen and left it into to heart of the female flower. The flower closes on the end of the day trapping in the male head with the pollen in there.
Now not all female flowers growing into fruits are a success. Here you can see the start of the growing of a zucchini where I think either it didn't get enough moist or the pollination process was nog entirely done right.
I didn't interfere with this yellow one so that is surely possible. But in the back you see a green thick one growing, I guess that one will be just fine.
Here below you can also see another one where 'something' is off with it. Yes the biggest part of it is growing just fine, but the tip is having some issues.
I am very curious on how this one will end eventually. The thick part looks just fine, I might just chop off the yellow part and it will be perfect for making soup.
As you see.... Gardening remains to be trial and error in everything. Win some and loose some. I know not all of these will be 'just' perfect, but it is not all about the shape of it.
It is on what you can eventually eat for yourself or your family or friends and not how it is all optical.
Up until now these zucchinis have grown in two months and it is quite a success.
I am very curious to see what will happen over the next months as zucchinis are notorious for shaping gigantically and getting out of hand with their growth.
Let's go for that!!
