Remember my grey zucchini that I was so excited about? The ones with big golden blooms?
Here's a quick reminder:
Well, a little over two weeks ago, one of them died. I was saddened by this, but these things happen. I still had the other zucchini, after all. Zucchinis have both male and female flowers, so there was still hope of a harvest. The one that was still alive was looking truly beautiful, and perfectly happy.
But not more than a week later...
Yep. I lost that one, too.
I puzzled over it for quite some time, which is why I didn't say anything. Well, that, and I wanted to mourn the loss of being able to use my new cookbook that I got at my first visit to the farmers market in anticipation of my harvest.
All I could think was that black walnut toxicity had struck again. It killed the rhubarb that I had found growing in the wild area, but I was expecting that. The problem, though, was that I couldn't find any squash on any of the sensitivity lists.
Naturally, I went hunting. At last, I came upon a thread in Gardenweb's organic gardening forum that mentioned zucchini and black walnut.
Toward
the
end
of
the
longest,
most
tangled
thread
EVER...
But I finally got my answer: Black walnut toxicity has little to no effect on zucchini. There was, however, mention of root rot. Given the look of the very base of my plants, I think that could very possibly be the answer. Ugh.
The good news? My mourning period has ended, so I decided to plant something new in memorium.
A golden crookneck squash has been growing in a large pot for a while now, and seems to be healthy and happy. I planted it at the very tail end of the recommended planting dates, so hopefully it wasn't done too late.
But if it does turn out to be too late, that's perfectly ok. It's very cathartic, after all!
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