Zucchini

Sowing: Zucchini can be started by direct-sowing or by transplanting; seed is sown when the soil is warm, around 58 to 60°F, roughly an inch deep, while transplants go out in late spring or early summer after the last frost. Because zucchini plants typically grow as a bush rather than a long vine, seedlings are usually thinned to a single plant every three feet, with four to six feet left between rows.

Care: Choose a full-sun site with fertile, well-drained soil enriched with compost, and keep the soil consistently moist; mulching around the plants helps retain that moisture and suppress competing weeds. Phosphorus and potassium are best applied before planting, with most of the nitrogen given before sowing and the remainder side-dressed once the vines begin to run.

Pollination: Zucchini bears separate male and female flowers on the same plant, and because pollen loses viability within a few hours of a flower opening, bees and other visiting insects are needed to carry it between blossoms and ensure fruit set.

Zucchini is attacked by slugs, aphids, and various beetles, and like other cucurbits it is vulnerable to squash bugs and to powdery mildew, a fungal disease that spreads over the leaves and vines.

Zucchini fruit has a mild flavor and is commonly fried, baked, added to pasta, or used in soups; the flowers are also eaten, and the seeds found inside the fruit are edible as well.

The species behind zucchini, Cucurbita pepo, was domesticated in the Americas at least 7,000 years ago, and Mexico is regarded as a centre of its domestication and diversification. Genetic studies point to the wild subspecies fraterna as the likely ancestor of the cultivated form, which left the New World in the mid-16th century and spread across the world, eventually giving rise to the many forms grown today, zucchini among them.