Cucurbita pepo Seeds | Summer Squash
LATIN NAME: Cucurbita pepo
COMMON NAME: Summer Squash, Black Beauty Zucchini
Plant Profile
A distinctive member of its genus, Summer Squash (Cucurbita pepo) is a handsome, vigorous, sprawling, annual in the gourd family. It is a species of flowering vine in gourd family, and it is famous summer squash of vegetable gardens, grown in warm seasons of the world. Mature plants top out at about Two metres. Bees find the flowers quickly, and that pollinator traffic is a garden benefit in its own right. It is hard to name another plant that gives this much for this little trouble.
Science & Biotechnology
As part of the gourd family, Cucurbita pepo contributes to research on plant classification and adaptation, while nurseries and gardeners continue to trial it for cultivation. Summer squash has a real and distinguished place in the research. Centuries of cultivation have left a detailed record of how it grows and behaves.
Uses & Benefits
Gardeners value Summer Squash for its ornamental character, and the plant also fits naturally into herb, vegetable and cutting gardens. Ecologically, summer squash is a generous plant of the garden. Its many large, yellow, trumpet-shaped flowers feed bees and many insects, and its very large, broad, leafy stems give a fine, green cover to warm ground of kitchen garden. For a grower, summer squash is an easy and rewarding vegetable, and for a gardener it brings a yellow-flowered, tender-fruited vine to kitchen garden. Thereafter it wants only the ordinary attentions any garden plant receives.
Pumpkins and squashes deliver carotenoid-rich flesh, and their seeds are a recognized functional food: pumpkin-seed oil preparations are used in European phytotherapy for prostate and bladder comfort, and the seeds supply zinc, magnesium and tryptophan.
Growing from Seed
Summer Squash is one of those generous plants that come along well from seed. A simple routine works well: sow evenly over the surface and cover lightly in a loose, well-drained seed compost, maintain even moisture, and provide bright light. Prick the seedlings out once they are large enough to handle, grow them on in bright light, and plant out when conditions allow.
Our Take
Among the Cucurbita group, it is one of the more distinctive species in cultivation. Plant it in sun with drainage to its liking and the rest is easy.
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