Container Zucchini-ing

[myurbangarden]

This is the first in a series of posts that I’m planning to write, outlining some of the things I learned during my balcony gardening last summer. Since there was a question over at

Comments

[lissa_dora]

This is very neat; I'd just been wondering about squash in pots when I found this post!

How far did your zucchini vines spread?

[myurbangarden]

You know, it's funny, but they didn't spread at all. My zucchini remained quite compact.

I'd prepared for it to vine by adding the tomato cage when the plant was still very young. The plan was to train the vine to grow vertically up the cage rather than horizontally out of the pot.

But it never happened.

I'm not sure if it was the variety of zucchini I chose (see above re: I don't actually know what I'm doing), or if it was just how zucchini behaves when it's grown in a container.

I'm so glad you found my little article helpful. I hope your container squash goes well this year!

[laureth]

Last year I had a zucchini in a pot. If I had a male flower but no females to pollinate, I would clip it and remove the petals, like you suggest, and then place that "swab" in a plastic sandwich bag in the freezer. Because I only had one plant, there were times when I had mateless females, and I'd bring out the frozen male swab.

I did feel a bit like I was making test-tube pollen-donor zucchini, but it worked!

Also, zucchini tend not to vine like winter squash do. I was pleasantly surprised by how adaptable to containers they were.

[myurbangarden]

That is an excellent tip! Thanks for sharing!

Also good to know that zucchini don't tend to vine. I was a little disappointed when my clever "let it vine up the tomato cage" idea didn't work out. :)

Thanks!

[anonymous]

I chanced upon your post recently
and thanks to your tips on hand pollinating
I decided to give zucchini growing (in tropical Malaysia)
a 2nd chance - and succeeded! Hip hip!
I couldn't be a prouder gardener :)
Thank you

Re: Thanks!

[myurbangarden]

Thanks for taking the time to drop me some feedback! I'm glad my post was useful to someone other than just me!

I wish you every bit of success for your gardening adventures!

[creedsgalbirdy]

Thanks so much for the informative post! I found you by Googling. I have some zucchini grown from seed that are ready to move to their container so I'm scouring the Web for info. Your post gives me a bit more confidence about it since I'm VERY new to container veggie gardening.

Even though this post is a year old (I'll check your regular journal if you're still updating) but do you know about how many zucchinis you'd get per season? How many seedlings per pot did you use? Thanks!

Thank you!

[anonymous]

Thanks for the great info on your experience! I was considering planting zuccini on my balcony but wasn't sure if it was going to vine around everywhere or get huge. After reading your post I think I will try it!