Zucchini Troubles!

I love all kinds of squash! Squash's ablility to grow rapidly is a gardener's thrill. Each morning when I venture into my garden, I look to see what the squash was up to while I slept. I usually find an errant vine trying to poke through the fence into the dangerous, deer and rabbit laden expanse beyond the safe confines of the garden. I scold it and shove it back through the fence!

Lately I've notices that several of my zucchini were turning yellow and rotting while still attached to the parent plant!! Oh, no, not my zucchini! I monitored a few days and decided that this was not going to be an isolated incident, so I ran to google and typed "zucchini rotting on the plant"!

This turns out to be a common problem. Several articles suggested that it was either a lack of calcium or nitrogen. I could quickly rule out the calcium issue as we have a well and our appliances will quickly attest to the fact that we have PLENTY of calcium in our water. Suggestion two: nitrogen. Hmmm.... well it seems that I have a near endless supply of nitrogen in old goat manure!!! (The manure is old as well as the goats!) Off to the goat shed with a shovel and bucket. I carefully scraped aside the fresh manure pellets and shoveled in the powdery old manure. I sprinkled generous amounts of this around each zucchini plant and watered it in.

It has been 3 days now and no new zucchini has turned yellow or started to rot!!! Maybe I have solved at least one garden problem. Now if I could just get rid of those pesky ants.....

Before :(

After :)