Loading…
13
I finally figured out why my zucchini kept rotting at the tip, and it took two full seasons
For two summers in a row, every zucchini I grew in my raised bed off the back porch would grow to about 4 inches and then the end would turn brown and mushy before it ever got big. I tried everything I could think of: more water, less water, fish fertilizer, even moving the whole bed to a sunnier spot by the fence. I probably lost 30 zucchini over that stretch, which felt like a lot for a plant people joke about being impossible to kill. Last month a guy at the community garden in Modesto asked me if I was hand pollinating, and I had no idea what he meant. Turns out bees were skipping my yard because of the shade, so the female flowers never got pollinated and the little fruit just shriveled up. Now I go out with a tiny paintbrush every morning and poke it into the male flowers and then the female ones, and I've picked 9 good zucchini in the last two weeks. Has anyone else had to hand pollinate in a shady yard, or did you just plant something that bees actually visit?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
reese1241d ago
Did you figure that out from the bees or just luck?
3