Zucchini reproduction

Or, what the hell is wrong with my zucchinis?

We grew zucchini (among many other things) back in Goleta. There wasn't much too it- you planted some seeds, a plant or two grew, they produced delicious zucchini. But when I finally planted zucchini here in New York last year, the results were highly disappointing. The plant would blossom, produce a baby zucchini, and everything would look awesome. But then the baby zucchini would stop growing, wither, and rot on the vine. I thought maybe it was because we had a damp, cool summer and hoped this year would be better.

And at first it looked like it would be. My oldest zucchini plant was HUGE, much bigger than last year. It had gorgeous enormous flowers, and then baby zucchinis! They looked bigger than last year's, and I relaxed. Everything would be fine.

But everything wasn't fine. The first baby zucchini stopped growing and shriveled up. Panicked I searched the internet again, and this time found suggestions that my plant might not be getting pollinated. This surprised me a bit, because we have bees around here. Big fat black and yellow bees and little golden honey bees (one even stung Liel the other night). Nonetheless I decided to take the internet's advice and help my zucchini plant have sex, since the bees apparently weren't doing so and I was desperate to have the thing actually produce. It takes up a lot of room in my garden, you know?

First thing I had to learn was the difference between male and female flowers. This, it turns out, is ridiculously easy as the females are attached to a small zucchini and the males aren't. They're only open for a little while each morning, but when they are you're supposed to take a paint brush, dip it in the pollen from a male flower and then brush the pollen off into a female flower. Easy. Sadly, I found this information too late to save one of the two zucchinis currently on my plant, but I did save the other! Their flowers only give you a couple of days in which to pollinate them and then they shut down and the zucchini dies. Here's a picture of the one I saved and the one I didn't. There are other baby zucchinis on the plant (as well as on one of my other zucchini plants) but none of them are big enough to be pollinated yet.

The rest of the garden is looking awesome, especially since my gladiolas started blooming.

I've been pollinating the cucumbers too (on the left side of this picture, behind the smaller zucchini plants) and they seem to love it as they're really trying to take over everything!

Seeds and seedlings

I'm trying to get back into this whole "posts with pictures, regularly" thing. It's not easy for someone with my natural inclination towards laziness, but I figure I need to get back in the habit before we head to India, so here goes! After abusing our soil for a few years and seeing increasingly pathetic plants and harvests we decided that this year we'd try a new strategy: enrich the crap out of the soil. For fun I thought I'd get back to my food growing roots and start my plants from seeds, too. So I re-upped my Hudson Valley Seed Library membership, bought a ton of organic fertilizers and soil boosters, and planted a bunch of seeds in bio-degradable pots two weeks ago.

 A couple of comments: 1. Those pots do NOT biodegrade. I mean, maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I've bought seedlings in them plenty of times, and been assured that I can just pop the whole thing into the ground where the pot will magically dissolve over time, and allow my precious planst to avoid the trauma of transplanting. What could be more delightful? But 4 months later, at the end of our growing season, there's the damn pot, still in the ground, and totally intact! And my poor plant, root bound, and hella sad. So while I used these pots to start my seeds (better than plastic!) I had no intention of actually planting them. And 2. If you live in the Hudson Valley or surrounding region and grow plants (for food or decoration) you should totally check out the Hudson Valley Seed Library. They're producing seeds locally and sustainably, preserving heirloom varietals, and offer all kinds of gardening advice.

 Back to my original point: pictures! Here are a few seedlings and many apparently empty pots basking in the sun on a broken down plastic child's chair we bought at Ikea years ago. I know, my flair for creating beauty from trash has probably taken your breath away. If it didn't, just bask in the glow of those cucumber and tomato seedlings!

Some of the seedlings grew faster though, so this morning Liel and I transplanted some peas, beans, and one zucchini plant into the actual garden. Liel spoke soothingly to the plants the entire time ("Don't worry little plants! You're OK. You'll be alright, you're going into the garden now! Don't worry..."), which was rather charming (and as both my parents and Robert were quick to point out, probably good for the plants, too). So here's the zucchini plant, over by the raspberry canes, which Robert valiantly cut back this morning to allow this planting. I figured the zucchini had the best chance of standing up to the aggressive raspberry plants. Hopefully it will be joined by one of it's friends (on the deck, unpictured) soon.

And here are the peas!

And one two of the bean plants. They're provider bush beans. Let's hope they live up to their name!

More soon. Pinky swear.