A Complete Guide to Growing Summer Squash & Zucchini: Planting, Watering, Fertilizing, & Pruning

Welcome to The Rusted Garden Homestead today's video is all about growing summer squash and zucchini use the timestamps to jump to the parts that you want I'm really going to cover all aspects of growing in the summer and let's just start with the zucchini plant this is a black beauty zucchini this was a transplant I grew it for about 3 weeks after germination indoors and it went into the ground I believe on May 2nd today is June 6th your squash and your zucchini are going to mature from germination and be ready to start producing in you know as little as 35 days so 35 to 45 days your plants from germination or transplant are really going to start producing what does that mean and I'd like to start here squash zucchini plants are often attacked by the vine bore it's a butterfly or moth that flies in lays eggs The larva craw down into the stem kill out your plant you also get squash bugs other insects one mistake people make is they think they have to plant all their squash and zucchini at the same time so it all goes into ground let's just say May 2nd you knew you know or June 2nd or something like that and then they end up with six plants way too much squash and zucchini for even a family of four or six to eat creates a Haven for insects and bugs to come in makes it harder to in expect six plants versus two and we're going to go over this one's beautiful nice dark green leaves this one's doing pretty good it's a different variety a little lighter green leaves that can be normal based on different types of squash different types of Summer zucchini but we're going to pretend this one is a little sickly I'll show you how to perk it up with some water soluble fertilizer by only growing two plants three plants at a time I can easily come in and inspect the undersides of the leaf leaves for squash bug eggs there aren't any on there right now I can monitor for pests and disease and it just makes it easier but for some reason people just think you can only plant these once at this point everything's producing it looks good this is a great time to find open space in your garden and put in two or three more seeds thin it to the strongest plant and you have waves of squash and zucchini growing through June July August even to September and what happens is is the plants that get hit by the vine Boyer first or get beat up and die off they're gone don't rescue plants that are beat up remove them but then you have the other plants that are coming up so you get a continuous supply of summer squash summer zucchini throughout the year so the first recommendation is not to over plant May 1st June 1st put in a couple of plants after they get to about this size you know they've been growing 45 days put in some more seeds 45 days after that put in some more seeds you'll get a continuous Supply and what happens is your plants mature and grow through the life cycle of the different insects for instance the vine Bo is going to come and go so your early plants are the ones where they lay the eggs Vine Board gets down there kills off the plant but you have other plants up and going they prefer to lay eggs on mature plants so the younger plants get left alone they come into play prod prod while these die off so you don't want to be rescuing or trying to keep alive plants that just otherwise aren't going to survive I've been using that strategy for the last 5 years it's really effective I also use it for my cucumbers so if you want to subscribe and follow I'll be doing this same type of video for growing cucumber plants I'm just waiting for the cucumbers to mature on the vine so the video is a little bit more interesting next pollination or brown tips on theak squash sometimes people think their plants they're are suffering from a Calcium deficiency some other issue when they see a brown tip this is nice and green this is a nice size zucchini ready to be picked this is another zucchini right down there that looks pretty good and is producing nice and green on the tip here is another zucchini still has the flour on it it's producing here's a zucchini that just opened and that's a zucchini right there with a nice big flower when the female flower opens the male flower these are all male flowers notice it's just a stem just a stem just a stem just a stem so this one is probably not going to get pollinated because the male flowers are not open you need to have a male flower open up again they just have a single stem here no zucchini they have male and female flowers so you have the male flower which is going to open soon and the female flower always has a baby zucchini under it and it will grow and it will get to about this size but if it's not pollinated the tip's going to turn yellow then it's going to turn brown and it's going to die off and we assume that's some sort of nutritional issue or some sort of problem and it really isn't so it may have been here is a male flower right down there you can see that it's just a stem below the flower this flower is closing so it's possible these two opened yesterday at the same time maybe that got pollinated if the pollination doesn't happen this is what happens see if I can get in there that is a zucchini that started to form and it looked great and then it started to yellow brown tip and die off and that's because it wasn't pollinated so the main thing that you're always looking for are male flowers and then female flowers and I'm looking to see and here's a a better version that's a female flower that's just starting see how the stem really is a zucchini it's thicker this will actually grow no matter what to about this size and you could pick it and eat it then if you want but if it gets pollinated it's going to continue and it's going to grow to that size and then to that size and this is perfect for picking for salads for sautes if you let this continue to grow that's going to Triple in size and get even bigger and sometimes you use that for like um zucchini parmesan or for frying it or something like that but you can start picking it at that size let's quickly talk about the difference between summer squash and your winter squash the summer squash Patty pan type crook neck straight neck your zucchini they tend to be more tender thinner skins you can Harvest them at different times you know eat them as they're growing and you just use them in a different way and they don't store very well the winter squash and here's an example this is my Butternut that I just put in a little peaked and it's going to get some water soluble fertilizer it grows more as a Vine it's going to take 90 to 100 days to mature depending on the variety of winter squash whereas your summer squash is going to get ready or be ready really in about 45 days you know from germination or from transplant so I have to Trellis the butternut you know up my trellis back down the trellis those Vines get 8 to 12 ft long you have acorn squash butternut squash spaghetti squash and delicata those are some examples of the winter squash and they take again you know good 90 100 days to get ready and you can't really eat them until they're fully mature have all the flavor you don't really eat them raw the summer squash you can slice up you can Grill you can eat raw and salads so there is a difference but the main difference is really storage the winter squash take longer they're going to store for months on your counter they can go you know 3 months 6 months pretty easily if stored the right way so you grow them a little bit differently here is my third squash plant I thought it was going to be a yellow summer squash but somehow I mislabeled something this was direct seated or maybe the seed pack was wrong anyway it's another green zucchini plant and it is smaller and it's a little a little bit pale it wasn't getting watered regularly so you do want to water these even when they're small every other day even after you get some rain every other day couple things to keep in mind and I'm going to put in the planting hole prep portion of the video at the end I've already shot that I use the basic planting hole for cucumbers for squash for my tomato plants and it just shows you how to set up the planting hole fertilize it and then you can put in your transplant or you can direct seed so this was set up direct seated and it's struggling again we're going to get to the water soluble fertilizer that's all it really needs but in the way of watering we tend to water our plants a lot less often than we should for some reason we have this fear that we're going to drown the plants so this guy needs a water soluble fertilizer more watering when a plant is this size you're going to need to water it still every other day they create massive root systems the so can dry out very quickly when the summer sun is out 85° beating down here they put out surface Roots they put down some deep roots but you have to keep the soil moist once the plant is to about this size this has not been mulched yet I had other plants around it you want to put down about an inch of mulch keep that moisture in the upper layer the more you water them the better they're going to grow and I would recommend experimenting maybe you water you know on a set schedule a couple of plants water a little bit more often I can't tell you exactly how often to water cuz it's going to vary depending on how much rain you get in your area you know how hot it is right now you can see right down there oh this one broke off this is a zucchini that didn't get pollinated turned yellow and it died off let's see if we have any more examples here's one right there that is a dark green right here starting to lighten up here this wasn't pollinated either that's going to die off and that's okay this plant is just getting going going and again we'll hit it with the water soluable feed get it watered we'll see how it goes inspecting the undersides of leaves there's a perfect example of a snail I use snail and slug baits to control them here are a couple of spiders those are good insects you want spiders around and you want to you know start now really just turning the leaves over and seeing what's around we're going to take the snail off there cuz I don't want that eating them and get rid of that you want to be inspecting your leaves regularly at least three times a week when you turn them over and you see these orange clusters of legs on eggs orange cluster of eggs under here and they look maybe a little bit bronzy a little metallicy those are the eggs of the squash bug so you want to remove them you can put down put a piece of tape on there peel them off you can just remove the leave if you want but you want to get rid of them they're going to hatch and they're going to just release dozens of squash bugs that will take the sap and nutrients out of your plant you don't want that to happen there's no easy way to control the squash bugs we'll talk a little bit more about that when I show you how I dust and set up a basic treatment to help this plant survive I don't want to take dust just real quick and throw it all over the plant because it's going to kill you know the spiders that are right in here so you don't want to just throw dust all over the place it'll get into the flowers it'll kill pollinators it'll kill good insects when my plants get to this size they're just starting to produce again there's mulch down here I like to put the mulch down you know maybe when they're half this size the quicker you get the mulch down the better the water stays in there you don't have to be on like the super tight schedule just you know practice these principles and the zucchini and squash you'll do really well when you get to this size maybe a little bit smaller starting to produce I take a handful of any organic granular fertilizer as long as has npn K represented represented and I just you know go and sprinkle it around the surface even all the way out there you don't really want it sitting on the leaves so after you sprinkle down the organic granular and maybe one or two big handfuls around this plant and then come in with some water wash it off the leaves that's going to supply you know a top dressing you could use compost if you have a lot of compost go ahead and use that what you're doing is you're just putting some added fertilizer nutrition on the top of the soil that will break down seep into those surface Roots at this point when it starts to produce I like to give it a water soluble fertilizer I use aggro Thrive I am affiliated with them uh you can find the information in the video description it's a great organic fertilizer it really really works well and I like it because since I've been bringing my dog in here more whenever I use fish Emulsion she comes in and she just starts eating the mulch so I can't really use fish Emulsion anymore and I like Agra Thrive better anyway for the uh blend of the npn K that's in there but it doesn't smell like fish Emulsion my dog leaves it alone so it's perfect where the fish May attract you know dogs cats and other animals to your garden so this is going to get a drink of the water soluable fertilizer at this point and then if you want I mean every 40 days or so 30 40 days you can give it a little drink of a water soluble but if you set up the hole the planting hole like I show you in the video you know or something decent use a top dressing now a water soluable now that's really probably enough nutrition but sometimes we'd like to you know just give them a boost every 30 40 days while they continue to grow remember this guy's going to die out today's only June um 6th this isn't really going to survive through middle of July Late July definitely not August so I'm always putting in a new plant and when I put in a new plant I set up the planting hole with uh compost organic granular Etc and that's plenty for these plants to really produce they are super fast producers at this point in the season you don't need transplants if you are going to grow with a transplant I think it's really important that from Germany ation that that transplant is only in that cup for maybe 3 weeks get it acclimated to the sun in that third fourth week and then get it into the ground keeping a squash zucchini in a small cup Beyond 4 weeks from germination really damages I think the growth of the plant in fact this is direct seated at the same time this transplant was put in here you can see that this plant is bigger it is a different variety but this plant very quickly grew to this size and it's starting to produce as of June really once that soil is 60° it's warm the warm weather's coming I recommend just direct seating they're going to germinate in four in a little as 4 days but you know four to 7 days they're going to germinate they're going to accelerate they're good to take off and it just saves you time there's really no reason to grow these to be honest with you as transplants you'll get a little bit Savings in time maybe two weeks or so if you're in a cold area or you want to get things started early but I would only do that you know starting an April getting your plants out into the into May after that just direct seed All Summer Long all the way into August 15th because in a lot of zones in here in Maryland I'm in zone 7 I will be able to put seeds in April 15th and I will have squash and zucchini coming you know in September over there from germination 35 45 days you're going to get production out out of these plants spacing now a zucchini plant squash plant is going to get really large this is in a 4tx 4T raised bed I have cucumbers growing up here up the cattle panel and again they look really good I'll be doing a video like this for cucumbers over the next week I've got some grapes in there in a 4T X 4T space technically speaking one large zucchini plant and this is not a Vining type it's going to vine slowly a little bit but it's mostly bushing but it is going to creep out to the right gets really big so in this space and I tend to plant things much more closely together you could really just put in two plants one in the corner there and then that's another one maybe that would go in a corner there that's going to be plenty of space if I pack in more stuff like I am now greater chance for bugs and diseases to show up in there but I just wanted to give you an idea this plant is really going to take up a good 3 ft x 3 ft fo space probably a 4tx 4T space Trails slowly more of a bush type but I just wanted to give you an idea they get really big I like putting them into the corner of the beds so they fall out into the paths the leaves do get beat up like for example right here bringing a hose through and walking through they get beat up that's not DG that's not bug damage that's damage from The Gardener and it's fine they can handle you know losing some of the leaves but I want to stress again the whole goal and the way that I found that I can have zucchini squashed through the summer is just planting them you know every four weeks or so 5 weeks throughout my garden so that as these are maturing and dying off I've got new plants coming up all the cool weather crops are coming out of my garden so this is going to get mulched up so it's important to mulch again when a plant is about this size get that mulch down keep moisture in there without moisture in that top 2 4 6 8 in yeah the plants could survive but you want them to thrive keeping moisture in the upper say 6 in of the soil really helps the plant pull in nutrients without water it can't pull in nutrients so this guy's looking beat up I'm going to give it uh Agro Thrive you can use any water soluble fertilizer that you want you can use the chemical types they don't hurt your plant they're affordable I would recommend using them like Miracle Grow aoro and I think plant expert at half strength you just don't need all that nitrogen so save money use the chemical types at half strength when you can use compost the water soluble fertilizer Agri Thrive is organic I try and use that you know when needed if it's an emergency I'll use the chemical types my point being that if you're using a lot of compost you have organic matter in your soil organic matter in your soil you're really giving the soil what it needs the microbes what it needs occasionally using the chemical fertilizers aren't going to kill worms it's not going to poison your plants it's it's just none of all that stuff you hear online you want to have organic matter in your garden it's really important your plants can't survive on just Earth no organic matter and chemical fertilizers it's just no good but you know that's my piece on the chemical types and why do I talk about that because organic gardening can be expensive and I want people to have food I want them to have a garden I want them to be able to you know Harvest out of the garden and sometimes you you might want to choose to use the chemical types now amount this plant is pretty you know looking a little beat up to me so I'm going to water it a little bit differently we'll go over to the plant that's thriving I'm going to show you the difference this is a 2 gallon container we're going to put about a gallon or so maybe half a gallon right in there and with the water cables I'm just making a square so that I'm getting it out to the roots that have been moving out really soak it in to the middle you know if it starts to pull like that just wait a second and we're just about to a gallon and I'm just going to give it a little bit more and that is plenty you don't have to worry now about giving this plant nitrogen that's what we're really trying to do at this point is giving it more nitrogen help it green up help it grow and this guy should be fine I'm going to get down the mulch um I'm not going to put down any of the organic granular cuz I know the planting hole is set up fine I think it's because I wasn't watering this guy regularly it's struggling struggling a little bit but the addition of the water soluable nitrogen means the plant can use it right away green Up Get Growing and everything will be fine this plant has been cared for with kind of all the principles I'm talking about so we put down the organic granular as a top dressing at this point you can put down compost and it really doesn't need much I'm just going to get in right at the base and just give it you know 5 10 seconds of the water sble and that will just help keep it going it doesn't need more continually feeding and you know overdosing the plants with nitrogen especially the water cot type can lead to really green plants but really kind of lush Leaf growth thinner leaves and sometimes that attracts the insects because you know they just see these beautiful green plants when they're flying by and they you know fly in and they land on them a lot of times the insects will come in as you pick a zucchini squash you break it sends out pheromones the insects find that they come in they like to go after plants that are damaged and when we're harvesting you know technically we're damaging the plant the plant over here and the pattern on that leave you know the light coloring right there that could have been from temperature temperature fluctuations or something like that I'm not going to worry about that that's not anything to you know overly stretch your yourself out about this plant looks really good it's flowering it's growing I can see bees and beetles I'm going to give this a good half a gallon to a gallon almost like the one that was struggling more you don't really need that much I mean it's hard it really isn't like you have to give it this much at this time plenty of water soluble fertilizer so my three plants are going to be off not well the plant back there is off to a great start this one's off to a decent start the third one's not off to a great start but these plants have all gotten a boost it's going to help them keep going it's going to help these guys keep producing and it's going to get the other one back on track the next thing to talk about is really spraying so you're going to be spraying your garden sometimes for pests sometimes for diseases and for my squash zucchini my winter squash sometime in July powdery mildew rolls in now it doesn't matter which spray you select which antifungal you pick most of them work I'm actually working on an experimental mix right now it's got milk and baking soda and stuff after I use it for a year I'll be doing a video on it but pick your antifungal that's really what I think your zucchini are going to need pumpkins melons too cantaloupe Etc cucumbers they're going to need an antifungal because powdery milder just rolls in I know that it comes in in July so you want to start spraying and this is what's important preventatively about 2 weeks before it arrives once it shows up on your plant the antifungals can slow it down stop it Etc but you really don't want it to get onto your plants so this is a little bit early for me for the video but I'm just going to do it to show you and then I'm actually um going to go to the powders for the insect dust which I don't need to do right now and then I'm going to rinse everything off I kind of have a journal set up knowing when I want to put down different chemical and stuff like that so for the spray basic sprayer this is a 2 gallon sprayer this is just Home Depot brand works really well I like it not expensive and you know they last I've had uh one going on 3 years now sometimes you buy sprayers they get beat up and they don't work etc I would just go for the basic HD uh X Home Depot sprayer not affiliated with them I just like them so when it gets to the leaves you mix up your spray and you want to fine Mist on the top sides get down on the stems the antifungals aren't going to hurt the pollinating insects the good good insects basically get the undersides and you really just want to spend some time just contacting everything on the plant and I would just go through and spray the top sides the unders sides the stems Etc and make sure you get your antifungal on all aspects of the plant if you're interested in baking soda spray please you know subscribe certainly but go to my channel just look up baking soda sprays or look up antifungals you'll find all kinds of videos with the mix recipes but generally speaking one to 2 tablespoons of baking soda in one gallon of water so this is a 2 gallon sprayer so it be 2 to four tablespoons if you're using 2 gallons what the antifungals do is they create a inhospitable you know situation on the leaf where the fungi don't like it and they don't show up what does that mean so your plant leaf has a basic pH level you know acidity alkalinity fungus like how zucchini is naturally we put on baking soda baking soda let me just make sure I get it right increases the alkalinity raises the ph and it makes it inhospitable to the fungus if you were going to use a sulfur spray both of these are organic sulfur decreases the pH makes it more acidic makes it inhospitable for the fungus to be on air and that's all you're doing is you're just creating an environment where the fungus don't like to hang out and they're not going to multiply and that will protect your plants from the powdery Milo or at least slow the powdery me do down a lot again by planting in succession or every 45 days we can plant through the cycles of insects through the cycles of disease and then come middle of August later August we still have have squash and zucchini coming but and then spraying wise routine about every 7 to 10 days if you're using baking soda or I think the sulfur spray that can be washed off in the rain if it's not raining every 10 to 14 days again most important stick to a routine if you're going to spray every 10 days spray every 10 days if you're get to spray every 14 days spray every 14 days and you don't have to start spraying June 1st if the fungus and problems don't come until later July but if you've not done this before jot down when the diseases and insects show up in a journal and then this way you can set up a plan for spraying now for dusting any insect dust be it organic be it a chemical kills good and bad insects so you have to use it in a Target it away you don't want to cover your plant in dust I use spinosad uh the brand name is Captain Jack's dead bug dust you can get in the spray or dust I like the Dust for beetles if you have beetles crawling on your cucumber plants and the again I'm going to be doing this type of video for the Cucumbers I put the dust on the outer leaves and I put some back there and then some back there cucumber beetles will crawl through this I wish squash bugs died off easily from dust they do a little bit but they're hard to control outer leaves away from the flowers active beetles will crawl through this for the vine boore squash bugs squash bugs like to come onto the plant from the bottom they hang out under there it rained yesterday we just put down water soluable fertilizer I'm spraying don't dust and spray and water all at the same time you want to put dust down um when things are a little bit drier maybe the day after you watered you're going to get a couple days of no rain you want the dust to be on the plant if you're going to leave it on there for 2 or 3 days let the insects run through it I like leaving dust down at the bottom for the vine boore that does help manage them you get less loss that way but they can come in from different parts of your plant notice the dust is away from the flowers I might even remove this guy get that flower out of the way this way there's less chance for the bees and good pollinators to be you know impacted by the dust dust kills all insects you have to use it in a strategic way and this is how I would kind of protect this plant set it up for larger plants the setup is pretty much the same for the dust just want to show you how much I put on a leaf you don't need to cover the entire Leaf you know just something like that and I would put it if I had beetles and things that are crawling through here I would put it on the outside leaves going all the way around leave the center open so that you don't have dust there that's going to fall into the flowers keep that Dust Away for the stem you know it's going to look something like that just down at the stem remove any flowers that you feel like you contacted or too close and that helps manage the vine board now sometimes for different uses of dust in my garden I may put the Dust down later in the evening when the pollinators go away and then come early morning before they really come back I wash everything off active beetles are crawling around at night all over the place and that's usually enough to kill a lot of them maybe you want to do that for two or three nights put it on rinse it off and that's a better way to protect the good pollinators however with my squash my zucchini I do keep the dust down at the stem and when it rains or I have to water or accidentally wash it off I will reapply it but make sure everything is dry and the final thing we're going to get to is just basic watering I get so many questions on watering and let's just start with seeds and transplants when you put a transplant in the ground it only has that little root ball from the transplant cup so you really want to be watering that at least every other day if not every day just getting it to where the root ball is same thing with seeds if it gets to be hot that top 2 Ines of the soil can dry out really quickly and it can damage the growth of your transplants even if you soak in this entire Garden this entire space with water or it rains because the transplants roots are just kind of bound to that small space they're not going to be able to access the water that's why I think direct seeded you know when you put seeds in the ground they catch up really quickly to your transplants because the transplants yeah look bigger up top with the green growth but they still need time for the root systems to spread out and get to the nutrients and all that kind of stuff when you put seeds in the ground the roots go crazy crazy and they establish first and then they really support great green growth so transplant seeds just about every day for a good 10 days or so to get the plants established when they're smaller you can probably get by with every other day every 3 days sometimes you think when the plants are bigger they don't need that much water last night it rained about half an inch this guy's still going to need water so I'm going to rinse off the dust real quick I don't want to be rinsing that into the flowers and then I'm going to rinse it off the stem so again you don't want to be watering when or you don't want to be putting dust down when you're going to water that day or you have you know rain coming or something like that I just this is kind of boring but I know and I did a video that if I turn my hose on fill a 5 gallon bucket I put a a 1in line a 2in line 2.5 cm 5 cm line in there and I know how long it takes for this hose this sprayer to give 2 in of water which is really about 10 to 12 seconds I'm going to water the base of this plant at least two times a week three times a week with this big soaking and when it gets hotter like early June it's okay when it gets to later June and July I'm doing this three or four times so that's about 10 or 12 seconds that's plenty of water to get get a nice deep soaking in there I also like to come in and then water out where the shallo roots are going to go and you know give them enough water that you can kind of in your mind seeing the water seep down a good 4 in or so and I'm getting all the corners all the soil it's going to be competing with the cucumber plant over there so right in between the shallow roots intersect I want to get some water in there now there's no real deep roots so you don't have to you know give it a good 12 seconds like I did in the in the center of this plant and to me this is a pretty good watering I we get some more back there you know for another 5 or 10 seconds the water allows the plant to pull in nutrients the Summer sun large plants quickly dries out that top 2 4 6 in the deep waterings are usually okay and they're there but you want to make sure that you're watering out and around the plant let's go over to the other guy again let me just rinse off the dusts so I'm going to go 10 seconds right at the core and I want to get that deep soaking and it you know when a plant's this big the Deep soaking is probably okay now some of you going to be confused did he say two times for deep soaking three times for deep soaking how often did you do the shallow watering I mean right now I'm doing both but I just want to give you an idea more on the quantity of water that's going in here that's a good amount of water and this plant really needs it you know this plant because it's struggling a little bit I'm going to three times a day I think I missed a week or I don't know what happened but three times a week plenty of water these plants are going to take off you can't overwater I guess you could but 99% of the time you can't overwater plants that are in Earth beds that drain and that are in containers that have holes in them and then maybe I'll just hit this real quick again I know the water soluable fertilizer fertilizer getting through there the plant's getting what it needs and I can check off the Box nutrients water soluble watering is back on track the routine is more important this is the basic planting hole I use in my garden you're going to see this in different videos cuz the basic setup is the same I'd like to dig the hole about 10 in deep 12 in deep at the most that's 25 to 30 cm deep you know 10 in wide 25 cm wide something close to that doesn't have to be perfect the whole idea is that you're just digging out a hole you're prepping the soil once you dig it out to the depth you definitely want to get in loosen up the bottom helps the root system just grow deeper depending on what you're growing and then you're going to add your basic ingredients I like the planting hole because if this was a brand new bed I don't have to amend and spend money taking care of this entire bed I can just you know set it up put in a planting hole one 2 3 four maybe for four tomatoes or like over there I have cucumbers one two for cucumbers it lets me just focus the resources where they're needed for this year nature will take care of the rest of the bed it's a way to save some money filling the hole now if you have tons of compost you can just go with compost you get to fill that at least halfway with the compost this is my compost this is made from leaves it's absolutely beautiful and generally speaking I would just put most of that in there mix it through put in my plant but we're going to be in different points in our Gardens with what resources we have available you can use Pete Moss the whole idea is that you're giving nutrients to this hole and you're also creating a place where moisture is going to stay that's really important like I was saying for the root systems now you could replace Pete Moss with cocoa core they both impact the environment and you just have to decide which one you want to use if you have endless compost certainly just use compost but I would fill the hole about halfway with the Pete Moss or halfway with the compost if you're using both you know a quarter of each or something like that that is a great addition to really set this hole up now you can go ahead put in any organic granular fertilizer this bag is a 27 lb bag that I got on sale years ago for under let's just say under five bucks which is ridiculous you want to put in one or two tablespoons of any organic granular fertilizer that's a slow release and then you just want to mix everything through you're not going to plant directly into that slowly add in some soil and just blend it together together really well and then you can kind of back fill in the rest of the soil you have your basic planting Hol set up and then for the tomato plant or whatever you're growing I would just come over dig it out set it to the depth I went and remember um the tomato plants are doing you know a quarter depth of the entire stem or a third of the depth you drop in your plant back fill around there and then you go ahead and you water it in in this case one of the tips is using a water soluble nitrogen or I'm sorry a water soluble fertilizer higher nitrogen to get the plant off to a great start but you're going to water it in your plant is good to go you can also do this with seeds so since this video is going to show up in other places you could set up the hole just like I showed you and then if you're putting in cucumber seeds or zucchini seeds you're going to thin to the strongest zuin plant you just drop it in like that the root systems grow into a great basically the great planting hold that's all set up for the plants root systems love it they get really strong and they really add to Great growth of your transplants or seeds in this case pruning your squash and zucchini is a little bit misunderstood couple things to keep in mind is any damaged leaves I am just going to get in and going to trim Off The Leaf so I like to cut the plant right up here when I'm first just getting started cut the top off remove that leaf and then I come back in you can see that it's Hollow so you don't necessarily want to leave a stem around once we cut these it's going to send out the phermones like I was talking about so some insects hone in on Plants by damage and it's seeping and you know the zucchini smells around you could at this point use peppermint oil spray I use that a lot mask the scent and that can keep the bad insects from finding the plants and I do recommend that I sell peppermint oil rosemary oil at my seed and garden shop and I use that a lot for my cucumber plants so I go in first and I just take the leaves off up here any leaf that is down on the bottom like down here that's not really getting Sun so you're removing the leaves that are down below they just don't need to be there all these upper leaves 1 2 3 back there four 5 6 7 8 all these leaves that are hitting that are being hit by the sun you know right onto here also case cast shade down there so you can remove the lower leaves that are down there like the leaves back there you can see one's yellowing out over there you can see another one yellowing out down there so I go in first and I just remove the tops here's another example we're going to get rid of this one right here you can see it's there but this Leaf is there shading that one I'm going to remove this that helps with the air flow let me grab that get it out of the way and you can see you know how big the leaves are now I don't like to do this all at once I'll do it in stages maybe I'll take off um I don't know three to five leaves let them grow more up here kind of recover once I have cleared out the leaves I will go down and I will cut the stem further back you want to go back as far as you can but you don't want to Nick the main growing stem and you know create an area where insects and stuff can get into the main stem so at some point you have to leave it like that for harvesting grab the zucchini let me get it in frame give it a Twist and it's going to pop off and that's ready to go to the kitchen here's what this guy looks pruned up removed most of the leaves from the bottom and just created the open space less leaves down there also mean less hiding spaces for insects less breeding ground for fungus and problems and I just want to show you how open it is now and there good air flow great place for the flowers zucchini to form when you come up top just want to show you what I'm talking about all these leaves even though this one is above this one it's still getting sun coming this way all the leaves that are left on there that one could probably go soon are collecting Sun you know you don't have to remove anything that you know when there's a leaf like this over that you can leave that there for a while the sun is still getting in there but this is the general canopy up top here that's collecting all the sunlight right in here the zucchini seems to be growing this way so this is the growing tip and then inside you can see that it's opened up again allowing for the nice air flow but this is generally how I prune my zucchini plants thanks so much for watching if you enjoy my videos please subscribe I'm trying to get to 750,000 subscribers I'll be doing a complete series on growing tomato plants they're taking off they're doing well just waiting for some of the tomatoes to form the key for squash and zucchini is really sticking to a routine routine in planting you know continue to plant there's the main ones right over there going to be putting one in here um probably in a couple of weeks keep that succession of the squash and zucchini going throughout your garden because you plant through disease cycles and through pest Cycles I think it's also important to realize and even though this is I'm in the middle of clearing out cool weather crops it's about a half an inch of rain last night don't underwater your plants a garden wants to thrive one or two inches of water a week helps it exist but we want them to thrive and to really be producing and for instance I have a sunflower right there a grape cucumbers to zucchini plants the water is being sucked out of there almost daily when the plants get to size so just water more often and when it comes to your sprays being on a routine every 10 to 14 days keep your sprays going is more important than what you select as the spray again thanks so much for watching please check out my seed shop at The Rusted garden.com

Channel: Gary Pilarchik (The Rusted Garden)

Views: 15,880

Keywords: garden, gardening, homesteading, growingfood, organic, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, herbs, vegetable gardening

Id: LErEnN9X2Rg

Length: 44min 22sec (2662 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 06 2024