Zucchini
General information: zucchini - a kind of solid-grained pumpkin. His homeland is Central and North America. This annual vegetable plant is more often a clustered form, cross-pollinated with dioecious flowers and five-lobed prickly leaves. Fruit is a fleshy pumpkin( false berry) elongated or cylindrical in technical ripeness of white, green or greenish striped color, and in the stage of biological ripeness - cream, yellow, orange and white flesh.
Requirements: best grows on fertile soil, rich in humus. Very responsive to manure. In the spring, organic and mineral fertilizers are applied to the soil, if this was not done in the autumn period, spending 10-15 kg of compost, 10-15 grams of superphosphate, 5-7 potassium salts and 7 grams of ammonium sulphate per 1 m2.
Ingredients: young undeveloped fruits - zelenians, contain 5.1 - 12 % solids, 2-6.1 % carbohydrates, 0.5-1.1 % proteins, and also almost everything necessary for normalvital functions of the body salt and microelements, vitamins( 15-40 mg% of vitamin C).
Cultivation: the largest and well-ripened seeds are taken for sowing. Soaking seeds in 0.002% solution of aluminum-potassium alum for 24 hours significantly increases the yield. Sowed in the open ground, when the soil at a depth of 10 cm warms up to 8-10 ° C.2-3 seeds are placed in each well. In addition, 2-3 kg of humus or peat mixture, 3-4 g of granular superphosphate and 2-2.5 g of potassium salt are additionally applied per m2.Depth of seed sowing 4-6 cm. When growing a squash of cotyledons, the seeds are germinated for 10-15 days in boxes with sawdust moistened with slurry, adding boric acid for every 10 liters, and then planting. After a break in the hole leave 1 plant.
Varieties
Greek software - imported from France and Italy. Fruits are cylindrical pale green, smooth, ribbed on the stalk, length 26-30 cm, diameter 9-12 cm, weight 500-600 g. Gribovsky 37 - early ripening( from shoots to fruiting 40-50 days).Fruit cylindrical, smooth, pale green, 18-20 cm long, weighing 430-620 g. Flesh white. Plants relatively easily tolerate prolonged cooling, responsive to fertilizers. The most common variety in the middle band. The long-fruited is a medium-ripening high-yielding variety. The fruit is long, cylindrical, dark green, weighing 400-600 g. Nemchinovsky is one of the best zucchini hybrids. Early maturing;fruit cylindrical, weakly ball-shaped, pale green, up to 30 cm long, weighing 610-770 g. Pulp is tender, juicy. Sote 38 is in great demand. Early maturing;fruits of 25-28 cm in length, 4-6 cm in diameter, smooth, without a pattern, after attaining biological ripeness they acquire a yellowish-cream color. The variety is suitable for canning.
Kruknek - this is also a kind of solid-grained pumpkin and to the same countryman zucchini. It has a peculiar bent fruit at the stem, for which it got its name, which in translation from English into Russian sounds like a crooked neck. In Russia, it was first used as an ornamental plant. However, the fruits have high nutritional qualities, and now the culture is becoming increasingly popular among vegetable growers. Krukenk yields to zucchini in terms of yield, but its nutritional value is much higher. For its growth and development, it requires a lot of heat, so in the middle band it is grown under film shelter. Cultivation of kruknek is carried out in the same way as a vegetable marrow. Recommended for growing the following ripening and yielding imported varieties: Seneca - from emergence to maturity takes 45-52 days. Fruits are yellow, glossy, jug-shaped. Over the summer, the plant produces 10-12 fruits;
Giant - is a lover of fertile soil, after emergence of shoots ripens in 45-54 days. Fruits are light yellow, with a warty surface, pear-shaped. On each plant there are up to 12 fruits.
When grown from seedlings, seeds are sown in pots measuring 10 x 10 or 10 x 12 cm at the end of April. For greenhouses and greenhouses squash for seedlings are sown in the first ten days of March, in order to plant it in April at the age of 30-40 days. Soil mixture for pots is prepared from humus and turf ground( 3: 1).Grow sprouts in well-lit windows, in warm hotbeds, under film shelters, maintaining the temperature 18-25 ° C until sprouting, after - for 4-5 days at night 12-15 ° C, in the daytime - 15-20 ° C, then17-22 ° C in the daytime and 13-17 ° C at night. The air humidity should be about 70 %. Places for planting seedlings are prepared in advance: they make pits, they put in the littered manure or humus( 2-3 buckets), pour the soil on top of the mound, into the recess of which the seedlings are planted. The plants are neatly squeezed and well watered.
Zucchini is a variety of zucchini with fruits of green, golden yellow and mottled colors. According to the content of carotene, some varieties of zucchini, mainly yellow-fruited, excel carrots, the seeds contain a large number of proteins, an oil rich in vitamin E;in the pulp of unripe fruits - carbohydrates, ascorbic and nicotinic acids, thiamine, riboflavin. Loves light, loose, fertile and well-warmed soils. In autumn, the soil is dug and left for winter in clods, in the spring the soil is loosened, leveled. One week prior to sowing, 5-10 kg of manure or compost, 30-50 g of wood ash, 40-60 g of superphosphate, are introduced per 1 sq. M.
Zucchini is grown from seedlings or sown with soaked and seeded seeds into an open pound. When sowing in the ground, the wells are pre-watered at the rate of 0.5-1 l of water for each, after which 2 seeds are closed at a depth of 3-4 cm. When a well developed real leaf appears, the more developed plant is left, the second is pinched leaving the roots.
Seedlings are planted at the age of 20-30 days with 3 well developed real leaves in the 1 - 2-decade of May under the film, regularly air, as zucchini can not tolerate high humidity. A bit later, the film is removed. Before the beginning of fruiting, the site is weeded and the soil around the plants is loosened. Twice fed - in the phase of 4-5 real leaves or a week after planting seedlings and in the flowering period and early in the formation of fruits. For feeding use water solutions Mullein( 1: 10) or bird droppings( 1: 20) at the rate of 1 liter of solution in the first fertilizing and 2 liters in the second. Once a week, watered with warm water in the sun, trying to get on the leaves and ovaries. Fruits-zelenots clean at least 2 times a week. Ovaries 20-30 cm long are cut from the peduncle.
Aeronaut - early ripening;from shoots to the first collection takes 4b days. The bush is compact, unbranched. Fruit cylindrical, smooth, 14-15 cm long, weighing 1.3 kg. The flesh is dense, tender.
Barren - ripening: in the fruiting enters on 38-44-day after emergence. Plant bushy. Fetus is cylindrical!? smooth at the base, slightly ribbed, white, in the phase of biological ripeness, yellow without a pattern, weighing 600-900 g, 14-28 cm long. Flesh white or light yellow. Slightly affected by bacteriosis and, to a greater extent, gray rot. Zebra - ripening: 38 days pass from shoots to the first harvest. Fruit cylindrical, slightly silvery, light green, pattern in the form of broad bands of dark green color, weight 500 g. Flesh is whitish-yellow, tender.
Care: in hot weather, regularly watered and fed with a solution of fertilizers, especially during the period of mass flowering and fruiting. Do it better in the afternoon. On fertile soils the first top dressing is carried out a month after planting the seedlings. In 10 liters of water, 40 g of garden mixture are planted and this solution is watered by plants, trying not to fall on the leaves. You can also use mullein, diluted in water( 1; 4).Just do not overdo it: too abundant feeding with solutions of mullein or bird droppings lead to the appearance of rot. In August, after the first fruiting, the plants are fed with urea( 10-15 g) with the addition of trace elements. Irrigation and top dressing not only contribute to the formation of larger fruits, but also delay their excessively rapid maturation. At the end of vegetation, 7-10 days before complete harvesting, watering is stopped.
Harvesting: remove fruits regularly, avoiding their overgrowth, which sharply slows the formation of subsequent ovaries. For better preservation of fruits in fresh form, they are placed in plastic bags or enameled dishes and kept in the refrigerator on the bottom shelf for 2-3 weeks. More mature fruits store about a month.
Use: unripe fruit courgette with tender pulp and undeveloped seeds are used fresh for salads, stew, pancakes, fried, stewed, stuffed, marinated, canned and so on. Ovary zucchini quickly and easily absorbed by the body and recommended for diseases of the liver, kidneys and hypertension. The crushed pulp of the courgette is used in the treatment of certain skin diseases.