How Do I Stop Vegetables From Growing Into Eachother?
I have a vegetable garden in my home that is about 5 weeks old. I came back from a 5 day vacation and two zucchini plants had taken over the garden and are growing into everything. Not only are the plants very long and viny but their leaves are HUGE. Is it safe to trim the leaves and maybe cut a FEW stalks or will that kill the plant? If that won’t work, what can I do to stop the plants from continuing to attack the other plants?
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Tagged with: leaves • plants • stalks • Vegetable Garden • Vegetables Growing
Filed under: Your Garden Q and A
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Thin them or plant them further apart next time.
Squash do not do well with stake support or trelis so you are left with thinning them (kill one) or letting them take over….the do not transplant well, you can try to transplant or try to direct the vines in another direction but they will probably head west (settin sun) despite your best efforts
You could try putting in two stakes on either side of the zucchini and stringing twine between them to hold the leaves on the side toward the other plants up and away from them. A section of the lattice fencing between the stakes would also work to keep the leaves from over-shading the rest of your garden. Zucchini have large leaves, but they don’t usually vine.
There are some areas in the country where people make sure their car doors are locked and put on their security systems when the zucchini starts coming in. Desperate people gather up the overwhelming produce (some of which can grow to the size and firmness of a ball bat) and go around looking for victims to inflict their zucchini on. If you really love zucchini and like it fried, baked, stuffed, in a cake or a loaf of bread, or maybe just raw with a dip-by all means let it overrun the rest of your garden. If, however, your zucchini tolerance is relatively low and you want other veggies, cut those suckers back!