arty Yellow Crookneck grow enormous, high-yielding
plants whose extent nearly rivals that of the largest winter squash.
They also grow a dense leaf cover, making the fruit a little harder
to find. These are the only American heirlooms still readily
available. Black Zucchini has become very raggedy; anyone growing it
should be prepared to plant several vines and accept that at least
one-third of them will throw rather off-type fruit. It needs the
work of a skilled plant breeder. Yellow Crookneck is still a fairly
"clean" variety offering good uniformity. Both have more flavor and
are less watery than the modern summer squash varieties. Yellow
Crookneck is especially rich, probably due to its thick, oily skin;
most gardeners who once grow the old Crookneck never again grow any
other kind. Another useful drought-tolerant variety is Gem,
sometimes called Rolet (TSC). It grows an extensive
winter-squash-like vine yielding grapefruit-size, excellent eating
summer squash.

Both Yellow Crookneck and Black Zucchini begin yielding several
weeks later than the modern hybrids. However, as the summer goes on
they will produce quite a bit more squash than new hybrid types. I
now grow five or six fully irrigated early hybrid plants like Seneca
Zucchini too. As soon as my picking bucket is being filled with
later-to-yield Crooknecks, I pull out the Senecas and use the now
empty irrigated space for fall crops.

Tomato

There's no point in elaborate methods--trellising, pruning, or
training--with dry-gardened tomato vines. Their root systems must be
allowed to control all the space they can without competition, so
allow the vines to sprawl as well. And pruning the leaf area of
indeterminates is counterproductive: to grow hugely, the roots need
food from a full complement of leaves.

_Sowing date:_ Set out transplants at the usual time. They might
also be jump started under cloches two to three weeks before the
last frost, to make better use of natural soil moisture.

_Spacing:_ Depends greatly on variety. The root system can occupy as
much space as the vines will cover and then some.

_Irrigation:_ Especially on determinate varieties, periodic
fertigation will greatly increase yield and size of fruit. The old
indeterminate sprawlers will produce through an entire summer
without any supplemental moisture, but yield even more in response
to irrigation.

_Variety:_ With or without irrigation or anywhere in between, when
growing