Matt's Plants & Co – Australia

That’s right… it’s a whopper!

Five months after sowing the seeds, we harvested the largest zucchini to date.

We left it for as long as we could attached to the plant, but once we believed it had reached its limit, it was time to get the secateurs out.

We then got the scales out to see it weighed 2.396kg.

And for $3.90kg from the supermarket, it means a saving of close to $9.40 for one zucchini. If you add as all the other ones we’ve harvested, it’s been well and truly worth it – and all from one plant.

But, what do you do with almost 2.4kg of zucchini? We grated it and tossed it in with pasta sauce – the skin is chock full of nutritional value. We then used the inside bits for curries and stir fries.

Soup would be a good option too given the mercury’s dropping but it just doesn’t feel like soup weather yet.

Now back to the plant itself. I reckon it’s a great addition to any garden given it can grow freely without too much fiddling around. They grow a strong stem with leaves to protect the zucchinis.

I did have to cut the dying/dead leaves off which appeared to encouraged other leaves.

But we did run into the issue of flowers not turning into fruit – a similar issue happened with the pumpkins.

I don’t believe the soil was too crash hot, so that probably didn’t help, but I will be looking at attracting more pollinators to the garden.

I have half a dozen native plants ready to go in the ground but they’ve been sitting in their pots for at least three months now. Once they’re in the ground, they should help to bring more bees to the backyard.

Finally, I stumbled across an interesting fact while researching this article – most of Australia’s zucchinis are grown in Queensland, followed by Victoria and NSW.

Thanks to varying temperatures across Australia, you can be sure of a constant supply of the versatile vegie at the supermarket when the conditions aren’t right to grow it at home.

Anyway, all in all, a great harvest from one zucchini plant.