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Aya
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Zucchini Question

For all you experienced gardeners out there, I have a question. While growing up and eating Zucchini, I always remember them being HUGE, like, as big as my forearm and round and fat. Now whenever I see them in stores, they are always the size of a small cucumber. I'm speaking mainly of the green oblong variety. My question is, are the giant ones a different variety or were the little ones that the stores sell just picked before they got very big?

DoubleDogFarm
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I believe most varieties will become caveman clubs if left in the garden to long. :shock:


Eric

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digitS'
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The latter, Aya: the little ones that the stores sell were just picked before they got very big.

My parents were young adults during the Depression. They taught me to not waste things but . . . Leaving Mom & Dad aside, I'll talk about my neighbors :wink: .

When I was a young guy, I had a garden at a new home. I'd already been gardening for about 10 years so, I had a measure of success.

The neighbors were elderly and only grew raspberries but they noticed that I couldn't keep up with my greenbeans and was letting some of them go. They came over, picked the beans and sat the bucket at my door :? . It kind of irritated me that they might have expected me to be appreciative but I wasn't going to eat those beans. They'd already gone round the bend, as far as I was concerned.

I knew these folks' adult children. They joked about growing up on cold cereal . . . Heck's fire! I recognize good veggies when I see them! And, if they aren't of good quality -- my compost pile is always hungry!

Taste is subjective but, for me, big zucchini are for zucchini bread. That's just fine and I like zucchini bread. However, I will do my best to harvest my zucchini while they are still fairly small. I'm out there twice a week cutting them off the plants and I really should show up more often.

And, my neighbors these days won't find me showing up and setting either my, or their, zucchini on their front steps.

Steve

cynthia_h
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If you're successful in growing zucchini, the plants will be prolific. Picking them small helps the odds favor you keeping up w/production *and* gives you a sweeter vegetable.

But there are always some zukes that manage to hide under the enormous leaves of the plants. Those zukes will be the size of baseball bats--or larger--when they allow themselves to be found.

I think this answers your question? :wink:

Another method is to find a neighbor, preferably two or more, who are *not* growing zucchini this year and to gift them with the small zukes early in the season. That will relieve you of at least a couple of batches! :D

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

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digitS'
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Uh, oh!

Now, Cynthia thinks I'm talking about her putting zucchini on the neighbors' front steps.

:!:

Steve's digits

cynthia_h
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If only my zucchini had succeeded...alas, I didn't even get enough for *us* to have more than one skimpy meal. :(

Last year's summer, so very hot in the East, was frigid out here. It was the coldest summer on the West Coast in 40 years, from May through September. Even the usual September warm-up didn't really happen. Gardeners out here along the coast were plagued with failure of tomatoes, zukes, eggplants, and peppers--the plants that need LOTS of warmth to succeed.

It will be a very long time before I get over that. Should my zukes succeed this year, next year, or any time, I'll find every possible way to cook them, even if it's just the doggies and I who eat them! :lol:

Cynthia

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jal_ut
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Zucchini are prolific and will get quite large. In these parts in August, you best roll up your car windows when you go to church or you will come out to find a zucchini or two in your car.

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Aya
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Lol, thanks for all the answers everyone. I havn't planted any yet - I was just wondering what to watch for if/when I do plant some. My Grandma always made chocolate zucchini bread with her huge plants - and it was always tasty! That's probably what I'd do most of the time. I like it just as a vegetable though too ;)

I cheated yesterday and bought a cherry tomato plant and a tomatillo plant on sale for 2/$3.00. I had all but given up on the ones I planted, thinking they weren't going to germinate - and then I get home with my plants and all of them had sprouted. Imagine that... :roll:

Tonythegardener
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In the Uk, we call zucchini courgettes and they are baby marrows. Marrows can grow very large and we used to put them into vegetable competitions to see who had grown the largest ones.

As marrows have gone out of fashion and only the small zucchini or courgettes are sold in the shops we now have pumpkin competitions to see who can grow the largest ones.

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Aya
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Its funny you mentioned that. I planted some Big Max pumpkins to see if I could get some big ones. I guess they top out at over 1,000 pounds! I think that would be the biggest jack-o-lantern ever!



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