Zucchini are one of those put-it-in-the-ground-and-forget-about-it kinds of veggies in the garden.

Or so I thought.

I’m taking care of several vegetable gardens this year in addition to my own—part of a human services residential gardening program—and seeing the different problems that pop up in each one has been fascinating. Some have aphids, some don’t. Some have blossom end rot on their tomatoes, some don’t.

And one garden has a massive zucchini plant with mushy-ended fruits. The first fruits this plant was producing were no longer than maybe 3 or 4 inches, yet soft spots were developing right at the far end of the fruit, right where the blossom was just about to fall off. I had never seen that on any of my own zucchini plants in the past. I was curious.

Similar, but not blossom end rot

Because I had just seen tomatoes at another garden with blossom end rot, that stuck in my mind as a cause of this early rotting zucchini. I looked in various books and did some online research for zucchini and blossom end rot. And because that’s the cause I was looking for, of course that’s what I found. Not the right way to do research, by the way.

I turned to my plethora of gardening friends on Facebook to see what they had to say about it. As it turns out, blossom end rot on zucchinis does in fact exist. However, it is rare. The more likely cause is (I’m still trying to find an exact name for it, so I’ll call it) early zucchini soft rot.

Early zucchini soft rot

The first thing to know is zucchini produce both male and female flowers. Apparently when zucchini produce its first flowers, it’s possible that the first couple of flowers are of just one sex—only males, or only females. Proper pollination only happens when there are flowers of both sexes (or one flower with both male and female parts).

When flowers of only one sex emerge in zucchini, pollination doesn’t take place properly. The flower will produce a fruit, but the fruit doesn’t develop the way it should. And what results is mushiness that starts at the tip.

I should have known blossom end rot wasn’t the cause. On tomatoes, the rot is actually a bit of a blackened hard spot. What I found on the zucchini was something you could put your finger through.

Over the past week I’ve noticed the emerging fruits are now fine. The problem now is, what do we do with all of them??