These next few weeks, I'm letting the summer interns take over the community garden plot reports to share what they grew and how that went.
By Amanda Cash
Over the course of the summer, I have been nurturing the seeds of a 'Cocozelle Green Striped' Summer Squash from Landreth’s Garden Seeds. The squash essentially is a small zucchini with light green stripes running along the sides.
On the back of the seed pack it notes that the squash is a “tender, flavorful variety of zucchini that all gardeners love. It’s an early producer and generous yielder, bearing very large fruit up to a foot in length!” To plant the seeds, we simply made a mound of soil* and placed the seed in the middle. We created two different zucchini plant mounds side by side. We placed a marker with the name of the zucchini on the top of the mound and then thoroughly watered it. After that, we regularly came back to the plot to monitor and weed the zucchini plants.
As the seed packet notes, it takes 5-10 days for the seeds to germinate and 45-60 to mature. The seeds took just about two months to successfully grow zucchini and there continue to be more and more flowers produced! We had to make sure each week that the plant was getting enough water as this summer has been quite hot. We also had to cut back any the vigorously growing morning glory vines that kept trying to attack the plant and remove any weeds that were trying to interfere in the space.
Zucchinis can be used for a variety of dishes from sweet to savory. We used ours to make delicious zucchini bread. I highly recommend giving this plant a try next summer!
What is growing in your vegetable garden?
*The soil in this bed was amended with Bloom just prior to this growing season.
About Fenton Friday: Every Friday during the growing season, I'll be giving you an update on my community garden plot at the Fenton Street Community Garden just across the street from my house in zone 7 Mid-Atlantic MD/DC border. I'm plot #16. It is a 10 ft x 20 ft space and this is our 8th year in the garden. (It opened in May 2011.) See past posts about our edible garden by putting "Fenton" into the Search box above.
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