Zucchinis and Courgettes are exactly the same thing, in the same way that pommes and pomme de terres are not. They are originally native to North America north of where pommes originated but quite a distance across the Atlantic Ocean from where pomme de terres are from, which is somewhere near France. If you don't speak French then you may not know what these terms mean, which is a shame as both pommes and pomme de terres are very delicious and in parts of Burgundy pomme de terres sometimes have a pomme sauce. As for zucchinis, and courgettes, they have thinner skins than pumpkins and squash and tend to be less voracious feeders. They mature relatively early, compared to their larger cousin the pumpkin, often in less than 50 days, and don't require quite as much water - though daily watering at the base of the plant is recommended in hotter weather when the fruit is forming. You should avoid too much watering on their leaves as it can lead to the growth of mildews which they are particularly susceptible to. You can also try growing them on mounds to provide better drainage and to avoid too much water sitting on their roots. They can be more suitable, than pumpkins, to cooler climates such as Ireland and England as they require a shorter growing season, but are most successfully grown in plastic hot houses in these heat challenged environments. When growing in these enclosed environments it is important to allow bee access especially in the mornings as they pollinate the flowers and you may not get a good fruit set if you don't let them in. You can encourage bees by planting nasturtiums, borage and other flowering herbs nearby.

In subtropical areas such as Brisbane, Queensland, which is no where near Burgundy, France, zucchini's flourish and can also be grown successfully in autumn and through winter there but are susceptible to attacks from cucumber flies, which look more like a little wasp and 'sting' the fruit and lay eggs in them which develop and make, particularly the ends of the fruit, go very rotten. To avoid this you can place some protective netting over the whole plant, but as with growing them in hothouses you have to either wait until the fruit had just started to form, after pollination by bees and the such, or every morning pollinate them by hand by using a clean paitnbrush with a little moisture on it and dipping it into all the different flowers before replacing the netting again. Other than the bugs zucchinis are very easy to grow. Eden Seed's catalogue recommends an ideal soil PH of 6.5 though and you may have to add lime to achieve this when the soil is acidic - this is what they call in gardening cricles 'sweetening' the soil i.e. raising the PH. I've found that a combination of horse stable manure, pelletted chicken manure, and some lucerne hay, combined with a good handful of garden lime, provides, pretty much the right conditions and I've found that I have never really had to worry about the PH too much.

This is a very good plant to have growing in a home garden as you can grow several different varieties which mature at different stages and thus allow yourself a constant supply of the vegetable (actually technically a fruit, as with pumpkins). You should remove zucchinis when they are about the size of the ones you buy at markets for if you leave them they can grow rather large and less pleasant, though larger ones can be used for stuffing and baking.

Other varieties to look out for are Cocozelle, an old Italian and good subtropical and temperate variety, Black beauty, which has dark green skin, and Crookneck, which is a yellow variety. All of these plants take up much less space than pumpkins but are not that small, so you need to allow about a meter square for the fully grown plant.