When to pick squash

Can you guess which of these yellow squash has
just been sitting around developing lots of seeds?

At this time of year and with as much rain as we've been getting squash grows like crazy (as do the cucumbers but that is a story for another day.) One day you have tiny barely formed squash and 2 days later you have eating sized squash.

If you are trying to grow baseball bat sized zucchini than just leave them on the vine. But if you want nice tender zucchini, you'll need to pick frequently. And carefully look under every leaf.

The zucchini in this picture range from baseball bat
size to young and tender.

Picking frequently encourages the plant to keep producing and it also keeps the vegetables from getting rotten from sitting on the ground. The goal of all plants is to reproduce by flowering, fruiting and setting seed. The larger you let your veggies get, the closer to completing the life cycle the plant gets. Which means the plant will decide it doesn't have to flower and set any more vegetables for you to eat.