Always try new things -- Seeking advice and expertise about cucumbers and zucchini

[BonzaiDuck]

I have become expert at growing tomatoes in a "vertical" garden plot less than 100 square feet. I buy the funnel-shaped cages at Home Depot, wire together the wide-hoop ends, and anchor the resulting spires into the ground when I plant my tomato seedlings. The seedlings, I let grow in half-gallon pots until they're about 3 feet high. I dig a hole as deep as 2 feet, gently remove the seedling from the pot, turn the root-ball on its side, trim all the sun leaves up to ground level, and proceed from there. They have great root systems. I prune the suckers from the sun-leaf elbows to at least five feet from ground level. My plants look like those in "Godfather" where Marlon Brando has his heart-attack while playing choo-choo train with his grandchild in the garden. I keep them, the soil surface and the surrounding brick wall treated with Neem Oil water emulsion without overdoing it. I spray them with Thuricide bacterial emulsion / solution. I have no hornworms, cutworms or mites. This is the first So-Cal summer -- a hot one -- when I've had mite-free tomatoes into the middle of August. The tomatoes? I can see I'll have the biggest pasta-sauce canning project in front of me for any time over the last ten years. And I have promise of some 2-pound tomatoes. No cracked shoulders. Beauties!

And -- my vast army of American red worms is thriving. They're having sex while eating at the same time. They are mysterious creatures, but wonderful. I've so far harvested about 2.5 cu ft of worm poop since I started my main composting bin five or six months ago. I had done this all along, but interrupted the practice a few years back and lost my "starter" -- the worm-poop and rot you keep that is teeming with worms to continue breeding legions more of them. This time, I've got it right. I'm never going to lose my compost Starter, and from now on, I'll separate the worms from their poop and pee before I put it in the ground.

SO. I'm branching out this year, not only with about eight varieties of peppers, but with cucumbers and zucchini. I've always had maybe one cucumber plant. I've been able to make a half-dozen jars of Kosher dills every summer, but it had never been more than a seasonal one-plant situation. Now I've got cucumber seedlings ready to put into the ground.

I've also had my first garden experience with zucchini. Maybe I got about a dozen of them (fruit -- not plants) this summer, and we've made a lot of Parmesan-breaded zucchini fries. I love it. Slap some tomato slices and pickles on your top-sirloin burger, and give it a side-order of zucchini wedges.

What can anyone tell me in the way of tips and secrets for keeping cucumber and zucchini plants healthy and growing? My leaves begin to turn yellow and look unhealthy after maybe three or four months. I want to gather all the cucumber and zucchini lore that's available. And! I've been nice enough to provide my own tips on the tomatoes.

WHAT CAN YOU TELL ME? I NEED TO KNOW!

 

[mindless1]

I skipped zucchini this year but usually grow them.

A healthy plant needs a TON of room, like about 14 sq foot, maybe less if planted in well-spaced rows but be sure to leave access to harvest them. They need a lot of water (once large) but best to not get the leaves wet so they don't mildew. It helps to make a moat around them (or trenches if in a row) so you can water into that with less runoff and less getting the leaves wet. They like a lot of nitrogen and loose soil.

Around here they are a magnet for stink bugs. That's my biggest issue. Massive amounts of them colonize my zucchini (but nothing else among several other things I grow) and if they are raised entirely on it, don't get to a typical dark color but instead stay light colored, almost like albinos.

The best solution I have found is sprinkle sevin powder on top of the leaves, trunk, and stems, but first a soapy solution on the bottom (don't want stray sevin powder floating around to breathe, the stuff is toxic, and you can't really lift the leaves much to hit the bottoms because their stalks are brittle). Unfortunately I have to reapply sevin after every rain.

Otherwise, if I want to let one grow mature/viable seeds instead of picking it, needs to be one of the first the plant produces, otherwise the final size and # mature seeds inside is much smaller and it becomes a strain on the trunk as it gets pulled down. If the trunk touches the ground, it becomes far more likely to mildew. A sandy top layer of soil may help reduce that.

Mine do start to have leaves die off after a few months, before it becomes excessively cold in fall to end their season otherwise, but by then the trunk is so long and thin that they aren't as productive anyway.

First time I grew one for seeds I was surprised how large they get, but once they get large and mature you have to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't start to rot and then insects burrow in. The stinkbugs don't burrow in, don't eat the produce at all (only stem suckers) but others do. However that is more unsightly than anything, they don't eat the seeds so you still have them for use, just messier.

I don't grow cucumbers, never much cared for them. I like dill pickles (and grow dill too) but I just pickle some of the zucchini, is a pretty close end result, most people wouldn't realize the pickle is a zucchini instead of a cucumber of some sort.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

That's a pretty darn big John Wayne Bobbitt you got there . . . That's my joke about Zukes and Cukes!

Your advice is as much as I'd hoped, and doubted that I would get it before you posted.

I had stink bugs, or something that looked like stink bugs, on a mature eggplant that was near my tomato vines about five years ago. The eggplants were really big, but the stink bugs also infected and disfigured my late-season tomatoes. I've since become aware of advice about "companion plants" for tomatoes and other things.

I must look into this "Sevin Powder" application. Other than powdery mildew, what other fungi and molds attack the zucchini? And I'm wondering whether or not Zukes and Cukes have the same pests. The leaves of the cucumber resemble the leaves of zucchini, but the two vegetables are anatomically different. As for the Zukes, I had an experience with the powdery mildew, and finally ripped up my mature plants -- if you can call them mature -- about a week ago. On one big Bobbitt Zuke, I found larvae resembling cutworms, but no damage had been done to the fruit or skin. Next time, I'll treat it with Neem Oil.

The lower leaves of my cukes begin to turn pale, and then light yellow. It's something I never bothered to research further, because cucumbers were a casual addition to my tomato efforts. But it was always sufficient for a few jars of dill pickles. You can either pressure-can your pickles, such that they turn out soft, or you can "cold-pack" pickle them for refrigerated storage, so they come out of the jar nice and crispy. I could offer the recipes, but they are simple: garlic, dill tops and crushed dill leaves, dill seeds, mustard seeds, salt (Kosher preferred), white vinegar and water. Pickling salt is really finely-ground Kosher salt. Kosher has bigger particles than regular salt, so one adjusts the amounts if the recipe just calls for "salt".

But back to the pests, fungi and molds. I read -- and discovered for myself -- that Neem Oil (emulsion in water) will control mites and white flies as well as fungus and mold -- possibly some types of bacterial blight. This year I sprayed Neem Oil all over the soil and brick containing walls, our rose-bush "tree" -- everything -- before I put my tomato seedlings in, and I'd treat the potted tomato seedlings with it every seven days. This is mid-August in So-Cal and a typically hot summer which encourages mite infestation, but I've had none. 9-foot-tall tomato plants in my "spire cages". The Neem Oil spray would seem to kill the mildew, but it would come back. The worst thing I noticed about the Zukes was a yellowing and deterioration in the lower leaves.

Thuricide -- a thick green emulsion of the bacteria bacillus thurengiensis -- mixes with water for a spray and will keep hornworms, cutworms and similar pests at bay. They ingest it, lose their appetite and die in a few days before doing much -- if any -- damage. It's good for tomatoes, cabbage, or anything attacked by larvae.

You said you need 14 sq ft per plant. From my first experience with Zukes, I thought it was more like 9 sq ft. I put tomato cages over the seedlings -- hoping to give the growth a vertical direction. When they are healthy, with big green leaves, they are beautiful plants. I think the yellow flowers open for only about a day, and one plant has both sexes of flowers, so a sable brush with time and tedium makes for a bigger harvest.

The fact that you've successfully pickled zucchini is also encouraging. I thought of the possibility, and I think there are recipes available. For my first experience with them, we made piles of zucchini fries or wedges by dredging the pieces in bread crumbs and Parmesan and baking them in the oven. If they're baked to a certain brownness, they're crispy enough yet mushy on the inside.

So I'll look into this Sevin Powder thing. I may want to use it.

Also, not sure where you make your home. So-Cal is either confusing or otherwise offers year-round growing seasons. Late fall and winter may be the best, although I used to start my garden fresh in February and March.

 

[mindless1]

I never made a positive ID on the fungus, just looked like powdery white mildew. Stink bugs never touched my tomatoes which were literally two feet away in a different row.

I cold pack the zucchini pickles and my grow season is late May through late September... I mean for zucchin, most other things that don't bolt will continue on until November when frost kills them. Zucchinin here stay alive through October if I let them but the more they start to mildew, the more I want them gone so it doesn't spread to the tomatoes. I don't ever bother with an anti-fungicide, isn't that important to me as I end up with more zucchini per season than I need, start getting tired of them.

You could get away with 9 sq feet, if your growing season is shorter so they don't start to snake as far in the direction of the sun, or split off and go two different directions.

I don't see how a vertical grow is going to work as well, the produce is too heavy and will probably break the plant if not just break off themselves, even with cages. Then again I usually let the gourds get about 50% larger than I typically see at grocery stores, but besides the center stem they're a very brittle plant, which can also make wind a problem considering how huge the leaves can get if the weather isn't very hot.

 

[Scarpozzi]

My wife plants all her tomatoes from seed. She's got warming mats and grow lights. We use cow panels in the middle of our raised beds to grow most of them and tie the plants off. Lsat year, I took a 10' long cow panel and staked it to 4 fence posts to make an arch. On both sides of the arch, we had cherry tomatoes growing up. By the end of the season, we had so many cherry tomatoes we couldn't eat them all. We had caprese every night with mozz and basil. We plant basil in between the tomato plants so when we can our sauce, we can throw some in each jar. If you're canning this year, hurry up and start looking for canning lids. Lids are hard to come by if you're not buying new jars. If you struggle finding any, look into the reusable lids. There are a few companies that make them and they're somewhat off the typical "Ball/Mason" jar lid radar for the purists.

I'm pretty sure that cucumbers are all about variety vs soil being right when it comes to moisture and sun light (maintaining the right moisture). They're mostly water, so it's important that they're watered enough in the beginning and well after they flower. We've planted cucumbers for years from seed (not plants) and they've just not produced well, but have had decent luck this year with smaller ones for pickling. I would think you want to do seed starts and bring the plants out rather than direct sowing as my dad and I always did. If you leave them on the vine too long, they get bitter. I would just study up on how wet the soil needs to be for the variety and how much sun they need....then practice a few seasons. Plant them in a few different areas in the garden to see if one area works better than others. We actually have a few rows that tomatoes do terrible in just based on the amount of shade they get.

Zucchini is grows like a star...it shoots out in all directions and when I see people harvest these huge zuccs, it makes me cringe. We did that when I was growing up and you end up with a lot of vegetable flesh that's good for zucchini bread, but that's about it. I'm all about harvesting them smaller and then using them in stir fry....or putting them on a grill with oil/foil and frying them a little....or shake and baking them.

In both cases, having a good compost base and nitrogen in the soil helps them grow without having to fertilize as much once they get going.

 

[mindless1]

I usually blanch and freeze excess tomatoes. All those blocks of them in the deep freezer, make it more efficient because there's less air exchange when the door is opened, and in the event of a power outage, it keeps the freezer contents frozen for a few days as long as it's not opened much. As I pull and eat them in the off-season, I refill the space with jugs of water to freeze.

I grow everything from seed, and several years ago built an indoor seed starting chamber, but got tired of tending to that and decided I'd just raise more plants and be content with first produce a month later into the year, so now direct seed almost everything... helps to have plenty of seed then you can shotgun it, put out way more seed than you need and just cull the sprouts that aren't spaced where you want them.

A fair amount of what I grow is essentially self-seeding, whether it be from seed that fall off into the pot, or that some things I compost, like tomato or pepper scraps, I just throw into a pot of soil that I've already prepped with a buried layer of compost ahead of time (or leave little pieces of rotten tomatoes behind on the ground) and the next spring, things are sprouting once it gets warm enough.

Granted leaving rotten things behind only works well if it's a limited amount or you don't have wild animals picking at it and it's not upwind of you, and far enough away that the gnats don't bother you.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

We're talking on the same frequency with all this.

Nursery chores are tedious. This year, I replaced the beige and "red-clay" Coleman canopy that shades my patio next to the garden plots. With my composting bins off to the side in a shady spot, and some small weatherproof folding tables, I still have room for my 4-foot diameter patio table and chairs. It's an outdoor makeshift nursery, and the area on the sides of the canopy allow me to store implements, hose-fittings, all my garden stuff. To make it more comfortable, I contrived to install LED light strips inside and along the spokes of the canopy frame, and I added a misting system along the sides of the frame after a two-time trial-and-error purchase of parts. I hadn't even explored the additional usefulness of the misting nozzles. I was only keen to out-door air-conditioning.But I can set my two little tables right under them. They water my plastic six-pack seed planters for germination and seedling growth. I can move them around to increase the partial sun, but I was gratified over the misting system's value against the tedium and disappointments of raising seedlings haphazardly or damaging them with a garden-hose misting nozzle -- or -- just forgetting to water them until it was too late. But if I'm going to sit on that patio here and there during every day, I'm going to flip the lever on my hose-bibb setup to feed the misters. The seedlings are never going to completely dry out.

I had been in the habit of scattering my arugula seedlings around, and there had always been arugula in my garden. the stuff grows in So-Cal like a hardy weed if you give it water.

Some time ago, I read and discovered that you didn't need the youngest and most tender leaves of arugula to get the right flavor. Lettuce, for instance, has a bitter flavor when it bolts. But you can let arugula bolt, it still tastes as good, and you can add the seeds to your anti-pasto salad. Planted from six-packs, I have four, single full-size arugula plants among my tomatoes, and they just seem to gain a healthier appearance at their full maturity. So it makes sense to cultivate them both ways: raised as single seedlings, and scattered around. Seeds are cheap, and you get a lot of them in a packet of arugula seed. I do the same thing with Cilantro, exclusively scattering the seeds and then thinning them out. I use the shady part of my garden for cilantro and swiss chard, which probably makes sense. But the swiss chard is planted from six-pack seedlings.

Well, sir. I'm a 73-year-old 20th century rocker-roller who learned about cannabis in a dorm-room when I was 18. During a lot of my career, I might not go looking for it, but it would find me every six months or so. When I moved back to So-Cal, the medical availability was already established, and now it's been a while since Prop 64 passed as a referendum on the ballot. Let us say, justified as I might make it on helping with arthritis, sleep, depression -- I dunno -- everything but my mild COPD, I have an annual budget for vaping cartridges and buds or flowers. It's not really a hefty piece of change, and it's not hard to re-supply.

But I considered growing a plant or two alongside the tomatoes. The garden is totally secluded; the state allows up to six plants.

But then, I discovered here in Riverside, a 2018 ordinance that makes outdoor growth a borderline practice -- with some interpretations that it can only be grown indoors.

So I'm just thinking about my supply of plastic six-pack containers, and the seeds that arrived from Canada last week. Should I? Or shouldn't I?

I'm weighing the pros and cons. I suppose, if I could harvest just enough, I could get some Betty Crocker's Chocolate Brownie mix, a couple eggs -- we always like brownies. I just couldn't see putting purchased ganja into confections. I'm not even eager to buy the confections you can have from the local dispensaries. But -- home-grown? It could be a welcome addition to the Don's Special Premium Pasta Sauce, canned from my tomato harvests.

Well, I'm reducing the tomato juice, V8 and cabernet for my special sauce, so I need to make sure it doesn't become too thick. I'll come back later.