Zucchini bragging rights

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DaveA
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Re: Zucchini bragging rights

Post by DaveA »

Try this to help control the number of zucchini that you get?
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I am so far behind, I think I am First :evilgrin:
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Zucchini bragging rights

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Comment should be superfluous.
20200831_100032.jpg
But I add with mournful heart and sagging bank balance that I am off, once again, on my bike to Swyers to buy even more sugar, ...
:munch: :munch: :cauldron: :puke:
Chris
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HansV
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Re: Zucchini bragging rights

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Best wishes,
Hans

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Zucchini bragging rights

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GeoffW wrote:
22 Aug 2020, 06:05
Female flowers have something round under the flower which will fruit; male flowers have just a straight stem, and there are usually more of them.
I have hit on an empirical theory that might have a basis in genetics/evolution: From cursory visual inspection, the male flowers sprout out from and above the main plant; they are the flowers seen from a distance. The female flowers tend to be close to the ground.
This makes sense to me in that the female flowers, destined to produce heavy fruits, sit where the ground can support the fruits, whereas the male flowers are visible from a distance and so can attract pollinating insects.
Bonavista_20200903_090409.JPG
Here is a male flower, trumpeting its presence, visible for a mile, possibly, to a bees eyes.
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And these I believe to be female flowers, hugging the ground which will bear the weight of their offspring.
Bonavista_20200903_090423.JPG
More ground-hugging flowers with fruits; the two circled inserts are the stumps of stalks where I have savagely ripped off huge fruits.
Cheers
Chris
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Re: Zucchini bragging rights

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20200828_145203.jpg
ChrisGreaves wrote:
28 Aug 2020, 17:39
The light-green plants are Squash plants trying to escape the sordid clutches of the zucchinis.
I have been pondering the lack of fruit on my squash plants. They are making great distance across what would be lawn if I mowed the grass, but are making no fruit.
Indeed, no flowers which would explain why they have set no fruit.
(1) The squash plants were grown from seeds I harvested from a squash I bought at Swyers late last year. If the seed-monopolies are growing sterile squash plants to thwart would-be free-loaders like me, then the seeds within Swyers squash plants would be sterile and hence would make plants, but plants-without-flowers, and hence plants-without-fruits (squashes), forcing me to buy more squash from Swyers.

(2) The prolific zucchinis are grown from a packet of seeds (bought at Swyers (hardware)), and if the seed merchants are thwarting me again, that explains why the zucchini fruits, on being opened, show weak soft seed forms, but not seeds ripened that could be used to grow next year's zucchini crop.

That is, seeds from store-bought plants are sterile in the sense that they will not produce flower-bearing plants, and store-bought fruits may not provide seeds.

This is, of course, a conspiracy theory, but if I had cornered the seed/fruit market, this is what Iwould do to maximize my profits.

I have noticed too that potatoes bought nowadays tend not to sprout from the eyes as happened fifty years ago.

Commiserations
Chris
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HansV
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Re: Zucchini bragging rights

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So your hopes for squash were squashed.

Perhaps Canadian potatoes have been genetically modified. The potatoes that I buy at the greengrocer's here do sprout.
Best wishes,
Hans

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kdock
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Re: Zucchini bragging rights

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Chris, I have camellias that created seed pods this year. Wisdom on trying to grow another camellia from the seeds therein is that camellias are highly hybridized and a) if they were to grow, they probably wouldn't look like their parents, or b) they will more than likely be sterile and not even sprout.

I suspect that even the workmanlike zucchini has the heck hybridized out of it to ensure healthy plants that are resistant to the various ills that can befall a squash plant. This does have the added benefit of creating repeat business for the zucchini hybridizer, but there you go.

Now, the volunteer squash (or did you have seeds for them? sometimes I get lost in these threads)... anyway, the exuberantly growing light leafed squashes were certainly capable of growing, but as you deduced are very likely sterile.

By the way, if your squash is overlooked by the neighborhood pollinators, the lady squash will still produce a flower. But the gentlemen always arrive first, likely to get the bees in the habit of visiting the vine so they're ready when the ladies are. The flowers of the lady squash will open as beautifully as a metaphor in a romance novel but alas, fade in unrequited sadness if there's no bee there to greet her. These squashes will start to exhibit blossom-rot and start to turn brown on the end so if you detect no pollinators in your garden (more often seen in greenhouse grown veggies) there are two things you can do. One is to cut them off the vine, young blossom still attached, cut in two and fry or grill them and enjoy them anyway (blossom and all). Or two, if it doesn't seem too personal, you can take a small paintbrush and try pollinating them yourself. Although I must say blossom-end rot it not likely to affect your gardens. More likely you will wake one morning, throw open the door, and be crushed and/or strangled by the vigorous veggies lurking outside.

And yes, I pollinated my own squash this year until the bees caught on. Kim
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Re: Zucchini bragging rights

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HansV wrote:
03 Sep 2020, 15:35
So your hopes for squash were squashed.
... didn't even get off the ground.(1)
Perhaps Canadian potatoes have been genetically modified.
I think that this is so, but only my conspiracy theory caters to my maternally instituted paranoid.

I suspect the real reason for seedless citrus fruits, non-sprouting potatoes and the likes are the North American fetish for blemish-free produce.
Waxed cucumbers we know about.

Sprouting Potatoes are probably seen as "going bad" when they are in fact demonstrating their health.

At one disastrous stage in my life I was dating a lady my age who tossed out unopened bottles of water (down the garbage chute), because they had frozen in the car overnight, And everyone knows that you shouldn't re-freeze anything that was frozen but has thawed. I kid you not. Bottled water. Previously frozen? Yuck! Chuck it out before it kills you.
Untitled.png
(1)I contemplated "The Gourd didn't ..." but gave up on it; too much to do today ...
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Zucchini bragging rights

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kdock wrote:
03 Sep 2020, 22:26
Chris, I have camellias that created seed pods this year. Wisdom on trying to grow another camellia from the seeds therein is that camellias are highly hybridized and a) if they were to grow, they probably wouldn't look like their parents, or b) they will more than likely be sterile and not even sprout.
Hi Kim; I can go along with that. Wasn't it a Bavarian Monk who tabulated peas changing colour every other generation, hybridization etc.
Most of the time whatever seeds I plant (for example, apple cores in of tomato paste cans) I plant just to see if a plant comes up. I now have one hundred apple trees, in everything from two-gallon tubs to tin cans, and next year will probably institute "Greaves's Groves". If I get no apples I won't be worried because I can buy them at $3/bag down at Foodland. But I would like to see a hundred apple trees in bloom, so If I get no fruit-blossom I shall be sad.
I suspect that even the workmanlike zucchini has the heck hybridized out of it to ensure healthy plants that are resistant to the various ills that can befall a squash plant. This does have the added benefit of creating repeat business for the zucchini hybridizer, but there you go.
With this too I concur (tempting: "I Cucurbit".)
And truth is, if one is really find of home-grown carrots or beets, it makes sound economic sense to grow them from packeted seeds, if only to improve the chances of proper growth, especially in a wind-swept barrens like Newfoundland.
The lack of diversity and, hence the lack of variety of taste is a penalty.
Last night around six, Kelly walked over with a plate of sliced Molasses Blueberry Loaf. Mmm. I gave her a 6-7 pound zucchini and she said "Thanks" and “Zucchini bread”, so I remain optimistic … Next year I will probably go zucchini again, just for the fun of giving them away. Although Danny sounds like he is about to charge me two dollars for each zucchini he takes off my hands.
Now, the volunteer squash (or did you have seeds for them? sometimes I get lost in these threads(1))... anyway, the exuberantly growing light leafed squashes were certainly capable of growing, but as you deduced are very likely sterile.
The squash plants came from seeds from a squash that el cheapo bought at the supermarket. I thought "Why pay for seeds for next years roast lamb dinner when I can have squash with roast lamb this year, and get seeds for next year, all at the one price?". Next spring I shall buy a packet of squash seeds from Swyers and do it properly.
By the way, if your squash is overlooked by the neighborhood pollinators, the lady squash will still produce a flower. But the gentlemen always arrive first, likely to get the bees in the habit of visiting the vine so they're ready when the ladies are. The flowers of the lady squash will open as beautifully as a metaphor in a romance novel but alas, fade in unrequited sadness if there's no bee there to greet her. These squashes will start to exhibit blossom-rot and start to turn brown on the end so if you detect no pollinators in your garden (more often seen in greenhouse grown veggies) there are two things you can do. One is to cut them off the vine, young blossom still attached, cut in two and fry or grill them and enjoy them anyway (blossom and all). Or two, if it doesn't seem too personal, you can take a small paintbrush and try pollinating them yourself. Although I must say blossom-end rot it not likely to affect your gardens. More likely you will wake one morning, throw open the door, and be crushed and/or strangled by the vigorous veggies lurking outside.
I must say that at this stage of the game I am happy enough being an observer and, child-like, marveling at the sheer mass/volume of vegetable matter that can come from four seedlings and a few barrows of partially-developed compost.
The business of frying or grilling flowers I have steered clear of. There seems to be some sort of -cide about the whole affair, castrating plants, I mean. I am not ready for that, although I confess to slicing off a few dozen zucchini leaves to let sunlight in to the squash plants. (There is, it turns out, something satisfying in swinging a heavy carving knife, scythe-like, through a jungle of leaves at shin level).
I have written (typed in) some flowery prose in my time, but it has been zipped in a password-protected file. I am not yet ready to start paitning same as art, I am afraid.

Cheers
Chris
(1) So do I!
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Re: Zucchini bragging rights

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ChrisGreaves wrote:
17 Aug 2020, 20:51
...This view greets me each morning...
No Longer.
I took the bull, metaphorically speaking, by the horns, continuing to speak metaphorically, and wielded a long-handled shovel last week - didn't want to get closer to the triffids than I needed to - and made three (3 metric) barrow trips, dropped the lot out to the 18" (0.000457 Km) deep pit that used to be my second driveway.

Bonavista_20201029_093751.JPG
The whitish stuff is not barbecue ash; it is snow that fell overnight. I am tired of staring out the window at the thick flakes that occasionally settle out of the wind-stream, which is why I post this sad image here.

The nice folks from Home Hardware dropped stuff off at lunchtime. I slipped them $10 and insisted that they take a zucchini, and so got rid of the larger of the two remaining encumbrances in my porch.
Megan wanted an apple tree, but I lied and said (straight-faced) that they only went in bundles of three, so that's three more MacIntosh trees gone.

I read somewhere that Jerusalem Artichokes are an invasive species. We used to grow and eat them in Gawler, so I have ordered about 20 lbs (about one-quarter horsepower(1) if dropped from a height of 20 feet (about 2.115835 metres)).
My theory is that next year the zucchini and artichokes can battle it out, and whichever wins won't get planted the year after next.

Cheers
Chris
(1) Or, I suppose, one full horsepower if it is a quarter-horse owned by one of those old-fashioned Americans.
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