Zucchini, Courgette, Summer Squash 'Black Beauty'

Grew 2012 in north Pueblo, Co (5a?), raised bed garbage high pH clay soil amended with peatmoss, composted manure and generic slow-releas...Read Moree granules. Drip irrigation.

Abundant, fast crops, considering the windy arid clime. Three vines in a hill formed a six-foot-diameter megaplant...total summer harvest was EASILY100+ large squash 8-10" long (hard to estimate, about a 40% given away. The large, dark green leaves got some graying+fraying in the relentless wind and heat).

Tasty, sweet flesh with minimal seeds. Left unattended over a long 3-4 day weekend, we would often return to 14-16+" squash! Those got airy/spongy in the center and required seed-scooping, but the meat was still firm and delicious.

The leaves wilted every afternoon in scalding sun and +100F temperatures, but recovered with morning watering just fine. They often looked whitish on the perimeter, but it wasn't powdery mildew (I think) and didn't seem to affect anything as far as I can tell. End result: "too many" delicious summer squash.

Fast growing foliage with lots of zucchini to harvest. If you want to decrease the harvest, pick the blossoms. There are a bunch of rec...Read Moreipes for zucchini blossoms online. After 4 weeks, we had lots of aphids but used ladybugs to get rid of them.

By far, this is the largest fruit in my Squash Garden! The length at maturity(seed bearing size) can be as large as 3'!!! The plant is ve...Read Morery immune to all problems of squash, usually the last to die in August. Taste is average.

Needs a bit more water here in the High Desert than when I grew it in Georgia years ago. But then everything takes more water here. Unl...Read Moreike some items in the vegetable garden, this one can take the "full desert sun" in the middle of summer. It just grows faster. You REALLY have to keep up with the picking, here.

Because we are so dry here, I did a germination experiment - the seeds that were watered once a day in the evening did not germinate (same soil, same sun exposure), but the ones that were watered twice a day - once in the evening and once in the late afternoon (both sets were watered with tepid water), sprouted in 4 days. From germination to first male flower was 32 days. First fruit at 40 days. (By the way, I found the twice a day watering for seed germination vital to all direct sown seeds here: sunflowers, squash, beans. Only the black eye peas seemed to germinated no matter what I did to them, even missing a few days of watering.)

I don't have a very sophisticated palet - tastes like fresh zucchini to me - nothing fancy - but tasty raw right from the vine.