Black Beauty Zucchini

[chrysanthemum]

We ate our first Black Beauty Zucchini today as part of a pasta sauce at lunch.  The fruit got large fast.  It was over a pound when I picked it this morning, but it was still tender and tasty.

I have just two plants.  The larger one is the one from which I picked the fruit, but it wasn’t my earliest fruit.  The first fruit to set was on the smaller plant, and I’m letting it grow to maturity for seed.  

Any one have an idea of just how long that might take?  Days to maturity for zucchini seem just to report how long till edible fruit, which isn’t maturity in a seed saving sense, of course.  I know I need to let the rind get hard, but I’m wondering if this is an extra month or an extra three months, or what?  I’ve never done this with a summer squash, so I’d be grateful to learn from others’ experience.

[macmex]

For seed, the general rule is to let the fruit stay on the vine a month after the skin can not be penetrated by a fingernail.

[chrysanthemum]

Thanks, macmex. I haven’t tried a fingernail yet, just because it’s still pretty young, and I don’t want to wound it. My concern about having to keep it on the vine for a long time is our high borer pressure down here. I have a hard time with zucchini plants because they get attacked so readily. Usually the only reason I can succeed in getting fruit [and I can’t always succeed] is because they get picked so fast in their immature state. If it got hard on the vine, would I be able to pick it and cure it off the vine for mature seed? I had to do that with Seminole Pumpkin once before a freeze, so I’m hoping I can do that with my zucchini. I’m just hoping I have enough time to get it to a hard rind on the vine.