11 secrets for growing zucchini (+video)
May 20, 2022 39 Comments
Zucchini, one of the most popular and delicious vegetables that we plant in the spring season and harvest in the summer. Pumpkins are eaten boiled, baked and fried and are a raw material for several summer foods such as pumpkin pie, briam and stuffed.
Pumpkin cultivation has common features with cucumber cultivation, melon cultivation and watermelon cultivation as these vegetables belong to the same plant family.
In addition to delicious taste, pumpkins have significant nutritional value as they are high in fiber, vitamins, antioxidants, potassium and calcium. Due to the low amount of calories that pumpkin has, it is a key element for diet programs aimed at weight loss.
It is a fairly easy crop that we strongly recommend to novice growers, as it gives a rich production and quite quickly. Even if they don’t have a garden, they will be able to plant potted pumpkins on the balcony.
So let’s see in detail, what care is needed to grow the pumpkin as well as useful tips to enjoy the most delicious pumpkins from our garden and balcony.
1. Which varieties of pumpkin do we choose to plant?
There are many varieties of zucchini, local, traditional, as well as foreign to grow in our garden. It is important to save our own pumpkin seed so that we know the characteristics of the variety we are growing.
We choose different varieties depending on the earliness of the pumpkin planting that have been tested in the local conditions and ensure us good growth and quality production. Some squash varieties have a bushy growth, while some other squash varieties are creeping on the ground.
Several growers select squash hybrids that are virus resistant during the summer season even though we cannot save seed for next year.
Depending on the shape and color, we can grow cylindrical or bottle-shaped pumpkins, with different gradations of green from light to dark.
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Some interesting squash varieties worth growing are:
- Zucchini : Popular squash variety that gives early production in late spring and early summer.
- Santorini Zucchini: Variety of round Zucchini with special interest and special taste, suitable for stuffed and fried rings.
- Flower Squashes : Special varieties of squash grown to produce flowers for making stuffed squashes, which produce lots of flowers and little squash
- Pumpkin : Pumpkin variety that produces round or oblong large pumpkins that we use to make pumpkin pie.
5 secrets for growing sweet pumpkin
- Water gourd : Variety of climbing gourd that produces special fruits for us, the well-known flasks that were traditionally used to fill water and various drinks.
- Ornamental Squash : Climbing squash varieties that produce small ornamental squashes in a variety of striking colors.
- Pumpkin loofah : Variety of climbing pumpkin that produces an impressive type of pumpkin that gives us after processing the vegetable sponge.
Cultivation of loofah, the vegetable sponge
2. What season do we plant the pumpkins in our garden?
The early planting of the pumpkin is done at the beginning of spring with ready-made plants that we have obtained from a nursery or that we prepare ourselves at the end of winter in a special nursery.
To grow pumpkins in late spring, we can plant the pumpkin seed directly in the ground, as at this time the temperature of the soil is suitable for the seed to germinate.
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3. How do we prepare the ground for planting pumpkins
Before planting the young zucchini plants, we will need to plow or dig our garden to ensure loose soil, and add compost, manure and organic fertilizer to the planting sites to enrich the soil with nutrients and organic matter
When planting pumpkin, a very important problem is unwanted weeds, weeds. A practical way to limit weeds growing in the garden is to install geotextile, nylon mulch, or some other mulch as we recommend in our related article.
Geotextile, how we use the ground cover fabric and what it offers us
4. At what distances do we plant the pumpkins?
We avoid dense plantings of squash to have better ventilation and lighting of the plants, thus reducing the possibility of the squash crop being attacked by diseases and insects.
The ideal planting distances of pumpkin are 70-100 cm between planting positions and 100-140 cm between planting lines.
If we have a very small garden, we can intercrop pumpkins, with melons, with climbing varieties of beans as well as with corn. By intercropping vegetables, the plants that coexist and grow are planted more densely, saving space, water and nutrients.
Planting distances for growing vegetables
5. How do we grow pumpkins in a pot?
The courgette develops many shoots and dense foliage and will need a fairly large round pot, 40-50 cm in diameter, to plant it. The pot should have holes to drain excess water from watering.
We choose a sunny spot on the balcony to place the pumpkin pot, relatively sheltered from south or west winds.
For planting the zucchini in a pot, we choose a special potting soil for vegetables, enriched in nutrients. At the base of the pot we place a thin layer of gravel or pebbles to achieve better drainage.
6. How often does the pumpkin crop need watering?
The squash plant is relatively demanding on water to have good growth and abundant production. In particular, zucchinis need watering every two days in the spring season, while in the hot summer season they may need watering every day to keep the soil moist.
Suitable irrigation system for watering the pumpkin is the drip irrigation system which is more efficient for uniform watering and also more beneficial to the environment as we save water.
We should point out that the excessive amount of water, as well as the wetting of the foliage of the plant, during watering, contributes to the appearance of diseases, the most common of which is squash powdery mildew.
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7. How often do we add fertilizer to the pumpkin crop?
Fertilization is a key growing task for squash, as it needs enough nutrients and fertilizer to produce well.
We add a complete organic fertilizer containing nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium once a month to our pumpkins to help plant vigor, vegetative growth, flowering and fruiting.
We must be careful as excessive addition of nitrogen fertilizer can adversely affect the fruiting of the pumpkin and cause reduced fruit production and the development of fungal diseases.
8. What diseases and insects affect the cultivation of pumpkin?
For the ecological plant protection of the pumpkin, we dust with sulfur around the root, as well as on the leaves to protect against fungal diseases, such as powdery mildew that causes the leaves to turn white and from the spider mite, the small spider that dries the foliage in conditions of high temperatures .
Dealing with tetranychos in the garden
To protect our pumpkins from insects such as mealybugs (aphids) and mealybugs that attack the leaves of the pumpkin and create characteristic honeydew, we use an organic preparation of potassium salts that we get from agricultural stores.
Alternatively, for the preventive treatment of insects, we spray the plants every week with an improvised preparation that we make by dissolving one tablespoon of grated green soap and one teaspoon of alcohol in one liter of water.
Treatment of powdery mildew in cucumbers and pumpkins
9. Why do pumpkins turn yellow?
Many times we notice that the pumpkins turn yellow, do not grow and remain small. Yellowing in pumpkins can be due to excessive moisture due to frequent watering and an attack by powdery mildew disease.
Of course, pumpkins can also turn yellow for other reasons such as a lack of calcium in the soil or a lack of nitrogen fertilizer. In these cases, we add organic calcium fertilizer or organic nitrogen fertilizer to our plants to correct the problem.
Calcium, what it offers as a fertilizer to plants and crops
10. When do we harvest pumpkins?
Harvesting of the squash crop usually begins 2 months after planting and lasts 2-3 months depending on the variety of squash.
The pumpkin is ready to cut when it reaches a length of 10-15 cm. It is harvested early in the morning and cut with part of the stem to keep it fresh and cool for longer.
Because the pumpkin fruit grows very quickly, especially during the summer season, harvesting should be done at least every two days. If we leave the pumpkins uncut they become very large and are more suitable for pumpkin pies and frying.
In addition to pumpkins, we can also harvest the flowers of the pumpkin plant, which, immediately after cutting, must be immersed in water to preserve them until we cook them. Pumpkin flowers have a special taste and we can enjoy them in unique recipes stuffed with rice or fried.
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11. And one last secret for growing zucchini
But in addition to pumpkins and pumpkin flowers, in some regions of the country even the tender shoots of various varieties of pumpkins, called pumpkin heads, are eaten boiled.
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