Grey/Gray Zucchini - Cucurbita pepo

[Tucson Grower]

I recently began growing one representative of this variety.

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Edit: This plant, to me, has some of the most attractive foliage, in the plant world. That grey/green mottled pattern, for me, is just wonderful.

[chrysanthemum]

I was planning to grow two plants of gray zucchini this year, but I never got the seeds to germinate, so I’ve never seen the foliage in person. It does look beautiful in your picture. It reminds me of my Seminole Pumpkin.

[Tucson Grower]

It was coming along nicely, though I couldn't get it to set fruit by self-pollinization, then I used pollen from cocozelle and had a hybrid fruit growing. It was planted beneath a mesquite tree, next to a crimson sweet watermelon vine. The watermelon is still doing fine, but all the leaves on the gray zuchini were blasted by the hot, dry wind, and don't appear to be recovering. Hopefully it will grow new leaves, and recover rather than dying. I think the mesquite tree was part of the problem, robbing too much moisture from the gray zuchini root zone, despite the constant drip at its root zone. There was minimal wind damage in the entire garden until yesterday - it was the hottest and windiest day yet. Many plants, even those who had plenty of water had leaves in various parts, blasted dry and dead - it was a sad sight.