Whiteley Creek Homestead

This week, the overnight temps are forecast to be consistently in the 50s and the daytime highs in the low 70s, so today I moved my zucchini plants, that I had been growing in pots in my greenhouse, into my garden beds. This year, for the first time, I got a head start on my sweetcorn, too.

Plants are a miraculous thing. When a seed sprouts, it grows two leaves called cotyledons that are a food source for the plant until "true leaves" form. (See the two large spoon-shaped leaves at the base of the zucchini plant in the photo below.) The true leaves, which look like the plant's mature leaves, are now able to feed the plant through the process of photosynthesis. The cotyledons' job is now finished, so the two leaves decay and fall off the plant.