Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 1 JuneTwo seedlings on 1 June, their long strap-shaped seed leaves still lying flat across the mix while three ridged stalks have gone up from each crown, one five-lobed blade grown right out over the bench edge, everything beaded from watering.Week of 1 JuneOne lopsided seedling on 5 June, its longest stalk carrying a leaf clean out of the top of the frame while two more lie low across the mix beside a single flat seed leaf, everything paler than the plants around it on wet gravel.Week of 1 JuneShot down into a clear pot the sun glares off on 6 June, the first true leaf fully open on a thick ridged stalk above a single flat oblong seed leaf, the next still wound into a crumpled bud and algae greening one corner.Week of 8 JuneOn 12 June, a coarse-lobed plant long outgrown its small pot: stiff hollow petioles splay almost horizontally to carry blades well past the rim, jagged margins crisped and silvery-white mottling along the main veins, everything still wet under soft overcast.Week of 15 JuneA Dark Green Zucchini on 19 June, five-lobed blades streaked silver-white along and between their veins on thick grooved prickly stalks, a tight knot of buds at the crown and one trumpet flower open on the plant behind it, in hard midday sun.Week of 15 JuneA Dark Green zucchini on 19 June, its spent female flower hanging as a creased yellow bell gone orange and papery at the collapsed mouth, and behind it the young fruit held stiff and straight-sided, pale green under hard midday sun.Week of 15 JuneA Dark Green Zucchini fruit on 21 June, club-shaped and swelling toward the blossom end where the spent flower still hangs on as a papery cream crumple, its skin speckled cream over a darker band and fringed with short bristles that the hard sun lights.Week of 22 JuneOn 25 June, a bush of enormous grooved bristly petioles radiating from one crown with no runner anywhere, their five-lobed blades puckered between pale veins, and down in the crown six or seven pointed ribbed buds, not one of them open yet.Week of 22 JuneA Dark Green zucchini fruiting on 25 June, one lying straight and very dark at the crown with the collapsed yellow flower still attached at its tip, a second flower open beside it as a ruffled trumpet, and a small reddish insect on a leaf edge above.Week of 22 JuneA Dark Green zucchini on 25 June, its hollow ribbed leaf stalks radiating flat from the crown like spokes under leaves streaked silver-white along every main vein, one fruit lying at the center with its withered flower still on the tip.Week of 22 JuneA Dark Green zucchini on 25 June with one fruit standing almost upright out of the mulch, near-black and faintly speckled, while two orange-yellow trumpets lie open beside it, one flat on its back with its throat and veined lobes to the sky.Week of 22 JuneA Dark Green zucchini on 26 June measured against an open gardening glove that still outreaches it from wrist to fingertip, its near-black skin flecked and streaked pale, the dried flower trailing from the blossom end in hazy sun.Week of 29 JuneTwo Dark Green zucchini on 29 June laid side by side indoors, both flecked pale over near-black skin with a blue sheen rolling off the shoulders, the lower one waisted and curved where the upper runs straight, each cut with its ridged stalk.Week of 6 JulyZucchini on 9 July, six crowns of ridged prickly stalks holding out leaves mottled silver along every vein — fat pleated trumpets open above, and low at one base a dark speckled cylinder lying on the mulch beside a smaller fruit still wearing its dead flower.Week of 13 JulyThree dark green zucchini on 17 July, of even girth end to end and freckled all over with small cream flecks that crowd closer toward the middle, each cut stem left blocky, deeply ribbed and bristly, laid out to drain under flat kitchen light.Week of 13 JulyA Dark Green zucchini on 17 July hanging from the crown of the bush, near-black green finely speckled pale with a thick ribbed neck where it joins the stalk, the crumpled yellow trumpet of its flower still showing beside it in dull overcast.Week of 20 JulyA Dark Green zucchini on 20 July, bottle-green peppered all over with pale speckling and still wearing the shriveled cream corolla at its blossom end, a gold trumpet flower open above it and low sun raking hard across the prickled leaf stalks.Week of 20 JulyThree Dark Green zucchini picked on 20 July, speckled cream over forest green and thickening toward the blossom end, two of them still carrying a sharply five-ridged cut stub, laid out indoors on red diamond-plate tread under warm room light.Week of 3 AugustA jar put up on 3 August, eight ridged green pods wedged upright and crossing one another in cloudy brine with a bay leaf lying flat on the bottom beneath them, and the one cut square across shows a hollow dark cavity inside rather than solid flesh.
