A short how-to from Nicole Johnsey Burke showing a three-step method to grow more zucchini in less space by treating zucchini like a tomato—stake/trellis vertically, prune regularly, and plant closer together. The approach emphasizes improved airflow to reduce powdery mildew and pest pressure and includes practical tips for tying, weekly pruning limits, and companion planting. The video also references an Easy Garden Kit and a follow-up guide for managing powdery mildew.
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If your zucchini looks like this, you've been growing it the wrong way. Today, I'm going to show you how to grow zucchini like a tomato so you get more fruit in less space with little to no pest or disease pressure. So let's get into it. Zucchini is famous for being one of the easiest plants to grow, and it is, but most people grow it wrong. So it takes up way too much space and is highly prone to powdery mildew and squash. Vine borer. Today, I've got your three step fix. Zucchini grows on just one main stem, just like a tomato. But unlike tomatoes, most people grow zucchini horizontally, letting it sprawl all across the bed. Instead, you want to take your zucchini and stake it right from the start, or trellis it so that it grows up and down vertically instead of horizontally. This is immediately going to make the plant take up way less space, improve your airflow, and cut down on disease. All right, so we've got this established zucchini, so we don't want to break the main stem. So generally you want to do this at planting, and I planted this, so it's my fault. But we're going to try to prop it up as well as we can and get this trellis as close to the main stem as we can, just like this. Okay. When you're attaching the vine, you do want to be really gentle. These are, I mean, they're really strong, big plants, but they can break easily. So I'm just using a little bit of jute twine to attach it, and this is going to be all it needs to grow, and then this will continue to grow up vertically against this trellis. Step number two, you want to prune your zucchini in the same way that you prune your tomatoes. Zucchinis are going to create, if left unpruned, an enormous amount of leaves. These plants are going to create leaf after leaf after leaf if you don't control it. So by pruning these plants, you're going to cut down on the leaf production and help the plant focus its energy on more fruit. Fruit. As long as you leave the leaves that are growing at the top of the main stem, then you're going to be fine. Your plant will have plenty of leaves that are going to collect sunlight and water and nutrients for your fruit, and you're not going to have too many that are absorbing energy that should otherwise go to making more zucchini. To prune your plants, you want to start at the lowest part of the main stem, and start to prune slowly up the main stem every single week. Never prune more than one third of the plant at a time. And when you prune, you want to cut all the way to the main stem. You'll find that the zucchini has a hollow stem, and you really don't want an open sore like that on your plant. So cut as close to the main stem as possible so that there's no openness to the stems for pests and disease to sneak in. And you're going to end up with a plant that's got all of its focus on making more zucchini. And step number three, you want to plant your zucchini way closer together. When you grow them vertically like this, there's room on this trellis to grow two more zucchini, one on each third of this trellis. And you can grow all of them up vertically and have zucchini for days. When you grow them this way, you also have room to companion plant them along other side. Plants that help things like flowers that will bring in more bees and butterflies, herbs that will help deter pests, and then, of course, beans, which will add nitrogen to the soil and. And help your squash be even more healthy. So when you trellis, when you stake, and when you prune your zucchini, you have room for more zucchini and lots of other plants, too. But there's one question we didn't answer, which is powdery mildew and pest pressure. Well, this type of growing for your zucchini, it's going to help with both. Powdery mildew usually happens when your plants are kind of suffocating. They're growing too close together. And every single time your leaves are touching the soil, you're increasing the likelihood of both pests and disease. So getting your plant up, it's going to increase airflow, it's going to decrease the likelihood of powdery mildew. If you do get powdery mildew, we've got a guide for you right here in our Easy garden kit. And this will show you how to deal with any kind of pest pressure. You can use just a simple spray, something like a little bit of diluted vinegar to deal with powdery mildew. But for the most part, you're going to have less pests, less disease when you grow vertically this way. Zucchini really is one of the easiest things to grow in the garden. Garden. I mean, this thing, it's been planted in this garden for less than 50 days by one seed. And look at it. Zucchini is just one of 10 plants that we have in our easy garden kit. Just imagine if you can grow this from one seed, what could you do with 10 packs? Crazy good. If you want to see what it looked like for us to create this garden and put this seed right here in this spot about 50 days ago, you can watch the whole thing start to finish right here.
