An easy, early and flavourful zucchini.
The bushy plants are compact (about 3 ft x 3ft) and easy to manage for a zucchini. Black Beauty has beautiful glossy dark green skin and creamy white flesh.
An ‘All American Selections’ winner from 1957, Black Beauty was developed by John Scarchuk at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. In an interview with The New York Times in 1983, Mr Scarchuk recounted the 6 ‘All American Selections’ winners he had developed over the course of his career, including Dark Opal basil, Candlelight pepper and Table King acorn squash (for which he spent 15 years making crosses).
He was 70 years old at the time of the interview and still planted over 200 varieties of plants each year and was still breeding new varieties. As described in The New York Times story:
Beginning this month, Mr. Scarchuk will start spending 40 to 50 hours a week with his seedlings, a schedule he maintains throughout the summer with transplanting, weeding, feeding and harvesting.
”It makes my wife kind of mad,” he said with a grin. ”She thinks we should be going places during the summer, but I never have any spare time.”
Black Beauty zucchini is an excellent variety for the home gardener and a wonderful legacy of John’s hard work — and Mrs. Scarchuk’s patience.
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How to plant: Zucchini seeds are easy to start indoors. Start seeds indoors about 3 weeks before the last frost (for us that is the beginning of May). Once seedlings emerge, place in a sunny spot and wait until the end of May/early June to transplant.
Within Canada only shipping on zucchini seeds, thank you.
