I have suffered long and hard for this year's crop of zucchini, and I don't think that it is over yet. It is WAY too late for my plants to start flowering and I may have to resort to covering them in a few weeks when the risk of frost is nigh.Firstly, my seedlings kept getting munched by an organism unknown to me, I could never find the little bugger but it kept munching the seedlings off at ground level only at night. No silver trails - so couldn't blame the snails! I resorted to covering the plants (phase 2 seedlings that is) over with milk and juice cartons at night. So then we had this incredibly hot and windy day back in November which just decimated the poor buggers and they weren't that small then either. So it was back to the drawing board and replant another crop. Again, cover it over with the cartons, then came the HEAT. Luckily the man of the house had constructed a shade cloth a-frame which ensured that they could attempt to survive the heat. I only removed it last week to let them out into the real world to survive....and THEN on Monday we had a storm which blew the damn a-frame over and squished the plants that I had nurtured. You can see a bent branch on the above photo.
But it's a bit like a bad pregnancy (or so I hear), it's all forgotten when you see the baby...and here is my baby...
I've had bad luck with my zucchinis too. We had three fruit, and then the heat hit and everything on the plants withered. We've only started getting a crop again now.
ReplyDeleteEarwigs would be what ate your seedlings, I reckon. They are a curse around here.
It's been a tough gardening summer this year. Our zukes have blossom end rot thanks to the recent hot weather. Noice. About the only thing that's been doing OK are the cherry tomatoes!
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