Know thy Vegetables

What is this plant?

In early November I planted some cucumber and yellow scalloped zucchini in one of my garden beds. The seeds sprouted. One group of cucumber was killed by a late frost. Two plants remained. One I was sure was the yellow zucchini, this was the first time I had tried growing this veggie but I was sure that I had planted the seed where the plant came up. The other was a zucchini as well, I could tell by its leaf shape and the smell of the leaves.

I was puzzled by the second plant, I didn’t remember planting it where it had come up and wasn’t even sure if it was a yellow zucchini because it looked different from the plant I believed was the yellow zucchini. I moved the second plant to a different bed and it died. I wasn’t too worried, any one who has ever grown zucchini knows one plant is usually enough!

Fast forward through December. My ‘yellow zucchini’ plant grew well, but it grew trailing like a pumpkin not a bush, which was my previous zucchini growing experience. I was puzzled, but the scalloped type are sometimes called zucchini squash so I wasn’t too concerned. Then the fruit started to form. I was interested in this, I wanted to see what shape would form at the bottom of the female flowers. The plant had a lot of male flowers, I couldn’t see any female.

Until last week. On Tuesday I was looking at my ‘yellow zucchini’ and I found a female flower. The swelling wasn’t at all what I expected, in fact it looked rather like a … cucumber.

Suddenly it dawned on me, trailing growth, tendrils, and fruit that looked like a cucumber. This plant is not a zucchini it’s a cucumber! 

The lesson. Don’t rely on your memory, and if looks like a cucumber it probably is. I can’t believe I was in denial for so long.