Courgette seedlings

[seeyouinanotherlifewhenwearebothcats]

Hello all. I got one of those grow your own courgette kids sets at b&q. Put them on the windowsill and now they’ve popped the lid off their little container. Can I just leave it off? Or do I need to move them all to individual seedling pots? If they make it can I put them outside next month? Thanks in advance

F with interest as same here!

Yes pot them on into individual larger pots now. Only hold the leaves not the stems and separate them very gently to avoid snapping stems and roots. (you can get fibre pots rather than plastic for the next stage which you can plant straight out with no more root disturbance and better for the planet)

Then keep them above 10 degrees, put them outside during the day from mid-may onwards and then plant out when frost danger is past - end May in my neck of the woods.

Unless you've got a lot of space you'll have some to give away too!

@WishIWasACavewoman thank you so much! That’s so helpful 😊 Good luck with yours @Internationalwomendayheadquarters!

Thank you @WishIWasACavewoman thats great advice!

Yes pot them on into individual larger pots now. No, not yet. They’ve only got their cotyledons. Wait till they have their first pair of true leaves and their roots will survive the move better

Leave the lid off but don't move them yet! They need their first set of 'real' leaves before you move them.
You have an awful lot of courgettes coming...

Ok, I’ll hold off with the lid off. @Chewbecca 😂I don’t know what I’ll do with it all

for future reference that’s quite a small pot for that many seedlings - I’d be worried that by the time they have second leaves they are going to be running out of compost and the roots might be pretty tangled. But courgettes are quite tough and you won’t need all those seedlings unless you have a Tesco contract to fulfil.

I once bought some courgette seedlings, the size PP have recommended, and planted them out. In my windy garden, my courgette seedlings snapped off in the wind

No matter how you think you are keeping up with harvesting them, there will always be a huge marrow lurking where you can't see it

The advice to not move them till the first true leaves come out is to avoid damaging them - but if you're careful you can, I do it all the time when I plant 2 to a pot and they both come up! Just don't touch the stems. I find earlier is better in terms of avoiding root disturbance from separating tangled roots later, and they grow faster. If you want to leave them longer OP it would be best to pinch off every second one to alleviate the overcrowding. But it seems like such a waste - I always grow on everything that comes up and give away the spares. You need about 2-3 foot square per courgette plant when they're full size, so unless you have a huge garden you're unlikely to need to keep more than 3 or 4 .

Oh dear! I think this will be my last b&q impulse purchase. I was hoping to put them into a grow table when outside but maybe not spacious enough?! I did fear they’d get overcrowded in that tiny pot

Always worth trying things in gardening! I'm sure you could do 2 in a grow table as long as you keep up the watering. A lot of the room they need is for leaves which can overflow the table - it'd probably look very nice.

Well that sounds nice. I’ll give it a go! Thank you

The advice to not move them till the first true leaves come out is to avoid damaging them Also so they have enough roots to survive the move. You have to be very delicate with young seedlings, something which comes with practice.

on the other hand, courgette seedlings are bulky and tough. You couldn’t, I think, safely transplant cabbages at cotyledon stage. And I can see your argument that it’s better to transplant now than to tease tangled roots apart, something that also requires delicacy.

I transplanted an early seedling the other day, from a pot where I thought everything had failed, which I did with great care … only to find, now its cotyledons have unfurled, that it’s a caper spurge!

As the saying goes, sow two courgettes, hope one dies... 😂 I love courgettes though so I always grow too many!

Last year I had two courgette plants - it was one too many!

They really spread as they grow and end up taking a huge amount of space too. They are really prickly too and can scratch you quite nastily.

I do love baby courgettes, freshly picked and straight in a salad or a pan with lots of butter so it's worth the effort.

I'm growing patty pan (the ones that look like flying saucers) and trombocini, the long climbing squash, this year. Sliced, fried with garlic thyme and lemon zest, sprinkle with sliced almonds and trays me happy most weekends over the summer!

Agree re roots and delicacy when moving early seedlings. The name of the game whenever it's done is for the plant to not know it's been moved. I have an old letter-opener I swiped from a long-past civil service job, and use it to winkle out the seedling from below the roots and transfer to a new pot, soil, tiny root ball and all, never touching any part of the plant. That's for the slightly cavalier borderline growing obsessives though

Update! I only got the chance to pot on today and you were all right, the roots were all tangled!!! I’ll be amazed if any survive the move. How long will it be before I know if anyone has survived?

Well done for getting the fibre pots!

As long as they didn't lose too much root, and you keep them well-watered, they should recover and be fine.

Start looking up courgette recipes for your coming bumper harvest 😁

Hope you like courgettes, with less plants than that - here is the once every three days harvest

This. How many courgettes do you want? 15 or 20 a day? Because that's what's coming. I sense a lot of neighbours who are going to hate you. Midnight courgette drop offs!

🤣🤣🤣 this made me laugh out loud! I have two people prepared to take a couple of the plants each. But yes, I will get googling courgette recipes

@WishIWasACavewoman thank you! I kept apologising to them for disturbing them, DH thinks I’ve lost the plot 🙈
@Pestispeeved what did you do with them all? Do they freeze? 😂

Courgette chips, cookies, cake, loaf, baked with cheese, cry, wail, more chips, give up for two days, end up with marrows, cry more, vow never to do it again.

If I was sensible I'd do courgette flowers more (so you head the bastards off at the pass) but I always miss the bloody boat.

@MrsTerryPratchett yes I always envision crispy golden ricotta stuffed loveliness in May and by August am wondering whether marrows can be used somehow ornamentally so I don't have to think of ways to stuff the bloody things.