Mary Allen
The zucchini is a vegetable that we mainly eat the fruit. The plant originally comes from southern Europe. Zucchini means “little pumpkin”. The name comes from the pumpkin, which means “zucco” in Italian. In Switzerland, they are called Zucchetti.
Zucchini most often come in dark green and yellow colors, but sometimes they can be white-green or white. The shape of the zucchini is usually elongated, some varieties are round. The courgettes contain a lot of water, are rich in vitamins, and are easy to digest.
You can eat zucchini raw or cooked. The skin of the zucchini is edible while the zucchini is young, as is the flower. The fruit is ready for harvest when it is still very small. If it is between ten and twenty centimeters, the fruit is very tender. But larger zucchini are also tasty. However, the shell then becomes harder and often has to be cut away. Cores from inside, are removed. You can also let the zucchini grow longer and only use the seeds. They are eaten roasted or the oil is squeezed out.
Zucchini can be boiled, roasted, or grilled. If the fruit is larger, you have to remove the inner part with the seeds anyway and you can fill the fruit with either meat or cheese. Zucchini can also be eaten in a salad or used in a casserole.
Zucchini grow in our nurseries or in the home garden. The plant only grows for a year and does not survive the winter. You can plant the seeds in the bed in mid-May. Leaf stalks and flower shoots then grow on the main shoot. There are leaves on the stems. The fruit can be eaten six to eight weeks after planting.
In biology, zucchini belong to the pumpkin genus and to the garden pumpkin species. Zucchini is a subspecies of this.