Zucchini is one of my favorite plants for the garden. It is so easy to grow and such a prolific supplier of food for the family that it is a must-have plant every year. I am going to show you how to grow zucchini below.
How to Grow Zucchini
Zucchini is easy to purchase at any garden store in the spring, or you can start them from seed yourself. I get a very high success rate with each. About a month into the growing season, they will start producing fruit and you can count on dozens of pounds of food per plant.
Zucchini can be planted in rich, well-draining soil, but I like to use a technique called straw bale gardening. Basically, I condition bales at the beginning of the summer so that they begin to decompose. I use soaker hoses to water my garden for the whole summer. For more on Straw Bale Gardening, see our YouTube series below:
How to Grow Zucchini Vertically
Zucchini can be space hogs but don’t worry, you can easily trellis them to make your zucchini grow vertically. I use T steaks and use remesh, which is the metal that goes into concrete. You can pick up a 4 X 8 piece of remesh at Home Depot for much cheaper than a trellis. Start the first row about 6 inches above the plant because the Zucchini vine is not that long.
You will have to train the short vine of the Zucchini up the remesh and help it by tying it gently your trellis with an old shirt or nylons. You can see one of my zucchinis by the door of my tomato tunnel below. If you do trellis your zucchini, space them at two feet apart.
This article is part of our series on Foraging Minnesota.
You may also like our other gardening posts
Zucchini Recipes:
- Zucchini Hot Dish
- Creamy Zucchini Soup
- Apple Zucchini Muffins
- Zucchini Fries
- Zucchini Chicken Burger
- Lemon Zucchini Bread
- Chocolate Zucchini Cake