Zucchini

So, my partner and my zucchini is growing awesome! Almost all the seeds are sprouting! I can't wait to see them when they are fully grown! They are already pretty big! I will post pictures later! :)

Zucchini Planting

How to Start Zucchini Plants

Step 1

Fill a 3-inch diameter peat pot with potting soil. Use a sterile potting soil or one that is sold for seed-starting purposes.

Step 2

Plant two zucchini seeds in each pot, planting them ½-inch deep. Water the soil until it is evenly moist throughout.

Step 3

Cover the pots with a plastic bag, which retains the moisture in the soil during germination. Place the pots in a warm room, around 21.11 degrees C, to germinate.

Step 4

Remove the plastic bags once the seedlings sprout. Pluck out the smaller, weaker seedling if both seeds germinate, leaving only one plant in each pot.

Step 5

Place the zucchini in a sunny window. Water the soil as needed to keep it moist but not soggy. Don’t let much water touch the leafs or leas will grow mold on them.

When to plant seeds!

Plant seed or transplant outside after the absolute last chance of frost has passed. Sow 5-6 seeds in hills in well-drained fertile soil and full sun

If you wish to start plants indoors, start them 3-4 weeks before last frost using peat pots.

Water/Soil/Sunlight

How much water? Medium amount of water. To water zucchinis the best way to water them is to put a gardening pot beside the plant and make sure that the bottom of the pot is at the same depth as the roots and every couple times a week fill it with water. The water will slowly seep through to the roots so it grows the best. Its best to use a rain barrel because there won’t be as much chlorine in it. If you don’t use the pot, water them 1-2 times a day. (morning and evening)

If you water the plant over top of it the leafs will go moldy and the plant will die. You would want to grow them in the soil that has the lowest acidic level. Plant in a location that enjoys full sun and remember to water moderately. Zone 3 to 12 are typically the USDA Hardiness Zones that are appropriate for this plant (although this can vary based on your microclimate). A soil ph of between 5.6 and 7.5 is ideal for Zucchini as it does best in weakly acidic soil - weakly alkaline soil. Acidic soil- Below 7 pH is acidic, above 7 pH is non-acidic. Rich soil- use compost and mix into soil

Research Questions

Do we want to experiment with amounts of water or soil? Or neither? Neither Should we plant different types of Zucchini? - Plant only one kind this year to see how they do.  Fastest growing rate in order to harvest them before school ends.  Rich, low acidic soil.

Pest and health-  Keep zucchini by spinach and flat leaf parsley. They keep the bugs away from zucchini.

Some common pests and diseases are cutworms,cucumber beetles, squash bugs, vine borers, spider mites, aphids, whiteflies 

Container - Large container to let plant grow big and to keep it producing vegetables, because bigger the plant more the zucchinis.  

Nutrients- The best fertilizer for zucchinis would should be water soluble which means that you would mix it with water. It is best not to let fertilizer granules touch the plant leaves as it could burn them. A 10-10-10 fertilizer would likely work the best. The three numbers indicate how much Nitrogen, Phosphoric Acid and Potash the fertilizer contains.  Nitrogen encourages strong shoots and leaves and is essential in the green coloring (chlorophyll). Phosphoric Acid helps with flowering and production of fruit or vegetable and seeds. Potash helps to strengthen plant and helps it to resist disease. A fish fertilizer is always good but you may have to fend off animals that love the smell and will go digging around your plant looking for the fish. If you have good, rich soil especially if compost has been added you might not need any fertilizer.

Resources

Websites:

http://myfolia.com/plants/897-zucchini-cucurbita-pepo-var-cylindrica

http://www.westcoastseeds.com/how-to-grow/vegetable-seeds/Zucchini/

http://www.gardenguides.com/116935-plant-zucchini-seeds.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_pH

http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/zucchini/solutions-for-common-problems-growing-zucchini.htm

Video on Managing Zucchini Plant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzs-VEtllx0

Pictures Of My Plants :D

 These are my plants as of today

 These are my seeds

 This was the soil we planted them in. 

I have no pictures from spring break of them, but I will get more as they grow.

Spring Break

We just got back from spring break today. I had so much fun! I hung out with friends, gamed, slept and almost broke my hip. Haahah. I almost broke it by doing a 180 on my snowboard. Oh well.. I will learn eventually. Hah. Andrea came over and we played Call of Duty: Black Ops II!! It was awesome! We kicked butt. We had Easter yesterday and I got a lot of chocolate and an iTunes card <3 I was soo happy. My grandparents and aunt came up and we had an Easter ice cream cake instead of Easter dinner. Next year, I hope to have an Easter egg hunt :D

Garden

We planted seeds for our greenhouse in March, they started to sprout! Mine are huge!! They started to sprout 2 days after we planted them :) So excited!! I have kale and peppers

Gardening!

On Friday March 15, we planted seeds for our garden! Over the holiday, we have to watch them. After Spring break, we are bringing them back to school to see how much progress they made over the break.We will be planting more seeds in the next few months for our green house!! So excited!! :D

Over Consumption Project Update!

We are officially done our over consumption project!!

In this project, I demonstrated communication skills by talking to my group and making sure we know what to do, and when we presented to another group. Something creative I did in this project is making the back ground and grass which had a river and flowers. A problem I ended up solving was how to do my graph for my countries. I only chose 1 country instead of all of them. Something I did that shows social responsibility was making sure I was fully prepared to work on this project and that I had all my materials that I needed. I showed social responsibility by making sure everyone had a job to do, and if they didn't, I found another part they could work on.  I enjoyed this project because I got to learn about how many trees people over consume in a certain amount of time and I got to use clay to build the models so we used little paper.

Some Things That We Have Done So Far!

Since the beginning of the year these are some of the projects we have done..

1.  Shore line clean up
2. Terry Fox run. We donated 50% of our earnings to the cancer research
3. We visited CKPG
4. Eye dissection ( grade 8)
5. Chemical Demonstration ( Grade 9)
6. Darkroom
7. Pinhole cameras
8. Memoirs
9.  Maps of where we come from
10. Movie
11. Over consumption
12. Light investigation ( grade 8)