When to Pick Zucchini: Four to Seven Days from Flowering

Four to seven days, and about eight inches

It is more reliable to count days than to judge size. Four to seven days from pollination, at six to eight inches (15 to 20 cm), with a glossy skin that gives very slightly when you press it.

How fast it fills depends heavily on temperature. In the hottest weeks a fruit can add more than an inch a day, so one that looked small this morning is oversized tomorrow. Once it is hot, look every day rather than every other day.

1. Judge by thickness Once the diameter passes two inches (5 cm), pick it whatever the day count. Thickness tells you more about the seeds than length does.
2. Judge by the skin A dull skin your nail will not mark is past it. A fruit at the right stage takes a mark from light pressure.

What you lose by picking late

Letting them grow looks like a bargain, but past twelve inches (30 cm) the skin hardens, the seeds show as outlines inside, and the flesh goes watery. Cooked, it stays stringy and the texture that makes a zucchini worth growing has gone.

The bigger cost is to the plant. One large fruit left on stops the other female flowers, and the next fruit is a week behind. If you find one you missed, take it off whether or not you intend to eat it.

1. Using an oversized fruit Over twelve inches, peel it, take the seed core out and use it in a stew or stuffed. It is no good sliced raw.
2. Missing fewer of them Look under the leaves and in towards the crown. Fruit form behind the leaf stalks, so looking only from above means missing every other one.
3. Keep a picking record Note the date and the number. The interval between fruit tells you a lot, and a sudden gap means the plant is short of food or it is too hot to set.
4. When you pick too many at once Fear of picking late leads to picking everything. Decide before you cut how much you will cook and how much you will freeze.

How to cut

Wounds from picking are a route in for disease, so avoid picking in the rain and work on a dry morning when the cuts can seal.

1. Use pruners Cut the stalk leaving half an inch on the fruit. Twisting a fruit off splits the stem at the crown, and rot gets in and can take the plant.
2. Pick in the morning Picked before it warms, the fruit is cool and keeps far better. Picked in the evening the surface is limp by the next day.
3. Take a leaf at the same time Remove one old leaf from just below the fruit you cut. It keeps the crown open and slows the mildew down.
4. Do not carry it by the stalk Holding the stalk splits the fruit at the shoulder. The skin is thin and marks easily, so support the fruit itself.

Do not leave the cut stalks lying on the bed. They rot and become a source of gray mold at the base of the plant.

Yellow and green varieties

The color is a variety characteristic and has nothing to do with ripeness. Picked at the same age the flavor difference is slight, but there is a practical difference: a yellow fruit is far easier to see among the leaves, so you miss fewer of them.

Green varieties tend to have slightly firmer skin and hold their shape better in cooking. If you struggle with picking late, growing one yellow plant among the green ones makes the difference obvious.

Using the flowers

Both male and female flowers are edible and they are one of the real advantages of growing your own, because they do not travel. Male flowers can be picked freely once the plant is producing more than you need for pollination.

Pick them in the morning while they are open, and use them the same day. They collapse within hours, so there is no way to store them.

1. Take male flowers Once the plant is cropping well, surplus male flowers can be picked without cost. Leave a few for pollination.
2. Or pick a fruit with its flower A small fruit picked with the flower still attached is worth having, and it also thins the plant.
3. Clean them gently Remove the stamen or the stigma inside and check for insects. Do not wash them under a tap: the petals tear.