Round Zucchini have been popular in Europe for years. The Italians have their dark green Tondo di Piacenza, the French have the light green speckled Ronde de Nice, the Dutch have the "Roly Poly" (a loose translation from Burpee's marketers) and the British have their single serve striped marrow, Tender and True. There is even chinese produced seed of an almost white round zucchini. The common thread is that these zucchini are actually rather nice; solid, nutty, sweet, and as a bonus they are extremely early producers and are prolific if you keep harvesting the fruit. The compact plants are real workhorses of efficiency. They laughed at the limited nutrients and water of our sand lot trials!

These round zucchini from the above plants have matured to form a tough pumpkin-like or gourd-like rind. You must leave them on the plant until their colors have changed and they develop that hard skin. It takes several weeks beyond the immature stage that we usually consume summer squash at for the squash to mature. These are on the porch where they will "after ripen", for an additional month. The after ripening gives the seeds an extra amount of time to gain food reserves which will allow for healthier, more vigorous seedlings and better germination. Then they will be split with a sledge hammer (yes, the can be tough), seeds will be scooped out, washed in a mild soap solution and thoroughly dried to the "breaking" stage before storage. We used to spread out the seed on newspaper to dry but now we use drying screens which provide better air circulation.

Packet: 9-10 grams of seed