Courgette Club for all those who are growing courgettes this year or who know something about it

[Dumbledoresgirl]

I have decided to start this thread as discussing courgettes in the middle of a G&T thread did not seem very polite.

So, my 5 small plants left the safety and security of their pots on the kitchen window sill today and went into the Big Open Ground that is my garden.

What chance I will get any courgettes?

Do they need daiy watering?

How about feeding?

I read on the packet they will fruit in August but we are away for 2 weeks then. Will I lose them all to marrows? I don't mind marrows per se but I am sure you have to keep picking the courgettes when small to ensure continuation of the crop. Is this right? Do I need to get someone in to pick them for me while I am away?

midnightexpress, my courgettes are in vegetable sacks from the garden centre.

bennyand joon, thanks for the watering tip! off to force feed the kids a bottle of cola

also growing
potatoes
garlic
tomatoes
runner beans
sweetcorn
sprouts
strawberries
caulis

1st proper try at it so very excited
i know, i need to get out more

Dumblesdoregirl, it sounds a lot but there's not a lot of most of them and I think with the exception of strawberries, courgettes and tomatoes we will have very little of each. We've got 3 raised beds that are 6ft x 6 ft. One for strawberries, one for raspberries, then the 3rd is divided into squares in an attempt at square foot gardening, so that makes 36 squares. Things like spinach has been munched by slugs so there's enough to feed about one baby out there at the moment !

Mange tout and french beans are hopefully climbing a rose arch I got in Lidl for £5. Potatoes are in hessian sacks, tomatoes, cucumbers, blueberries, peppers, chillis and aubergines are in pots distributed round the garden.

I haven't really got a clue what I am doing but my Joy Larkcom book says that in June you can sow directly into the ground:

French and runner beans, beetroot, broccoli, calabrese, carrots, mini caul, all chicories, chinese cabbage, courgettes, cucumbers, endive, mini kale, kohl rabi, komatsuna, land cress, lettuce, marrows, mizuna greens, japenese bunching and spring onions, pak choi, peas, pumpkins, summers purslane, summer and oriental radish, salad rocket, spinach beet, summer and New Zealand spinach, winter squash, swedes, sweetcorn and turnips.

There is a really good forum on the growfruitandveg.co.uk site which is full of people who know loads and loads and I've had lots of helpful tips from there.

Sorry to go so far off the topic of courgettes. I'm hoping lots of you have loads of delicious recipes for the courgette glut I'm sure we will all get....

DG...there's plenty you can start growing now from seed.
GUB has a good list.
You can plant lettuce/rocket all through summer and autumn. Last year I had it in a bed, but this year I had a couple of left over growbags so sowed seed there. I've now got plentiful supplies and it's so easy. I have converted half of a large cold frame this week, so am planning on filling that with edible leaves and it's right next to my kitchen door. Perfect!
If you've never grown beetroot give that a go. Again really easy, you can make successional sowings, but make sure you soak the seed for 1/2 hour first. It's really delicious roasted and nothing like the purple golf balls we all ate in the 70's.
Fruit wise, we have an orchard and fruit bushes but my favourites are the gooseberries... huge great big plump things that make great jam, fools, crumbles
and rhubarb....rhubarb jam with ginger is just fantastic!
Hope I've tempted you a bit

I got some courgette plants at a sale of work last week so am going to try growing them directly in the compost bins.

Slight disaster with the rest of the vegetable patch which was ram raided by a gang of chickens - they ate all the parsley, whitecurrants, trampled the onions then made a dust bath in the middle. I am on to them.

fruitshoot - that recipe sounds like heaven

midnightexpress, I had courgette plants in a grobag last year and they did OK until we got all that wet weather then got mildewed and rotten. The 2 I had in a raised bed carried on fine and gave more than enough courgettes.

I'm doing them in pots this year as the raised beds are full of oriental veg and stawberries.

Just joined the waiting list for an allotment - FOUR YEARS !

Wow so much to choose from! I want to start off small and I will only grow things that I feel will be relatively successful and that I would want to eat at the end. From the lists both GUB (ah, that has answered my next question for ingles - who or what is GUB, but I have worked out it is GreatUncleBulgaria ) and ingles have suggested the ones that leap out at me as being good ones for me are rocket and beetroot as I eat a lot of both for lunch, although carrots would be good for my family as a whole as it is a popular veg with them.

Does rocket need a cold frame or greenhouse?

My parents have always had masses of soft fruit bushes so I am very familiar with them and love soft fruits and am also a big jam maker so I am hoping to have lots of bushes one day - raspberries, blackberries, red and blackcurrants, gooseberries, those are the ones I want most.

It's exciting isn't it? (well I think so).

It is really exciting. I've been growing seriously for about 6 yrs now and get such a thrill still from all my little seedlings
You wait DG, the seed catalogue will become your favourite winter reading.
To the serious stuff...
Rocket and beetroot are really easy to grow with very little in the way of problems.
Try growing the rocket in a pot or grow bag where you see it easily every day. It can be quick to bolt if it's left in the summer. and it's a more you pick the more it grows plant.
this is the beetroot I grow it's stripey! so beautiful and really tasty!
Sarah Raven's website is definitely gardening porn
My major disasters over the years have been your common or garden veg, my carrots have always been riddled with carrot fly, parsnips had blight, potatoes just take up too much room for the crop and they are cheap in the supermarket. These days I stick to the more expensive things that are a pleasure to grow.

I laugh in the face of your 4-year wait Liath. I put my name down and then read in the local paper that it's a 40-year wait. So, I'll be 83 by the time I get one. Hey ho.

But thanks for the info on the courgettes. I have quite a few seedlings and the ones I planted direct are starting to sprout too now (woo-hoo), so I think I'll chance a couple in a growbag and the rest can take their chances in the garden.

I have a nice Nigel Slater courgette recipe which I'll post later if I get a minute.

Now, anyone doing dwarf french beans? I have planted a kerjillion and ONE has sprouted. ONE measly bean. Where am I going wrong? I used seed compost, put some in pots and some in loo rolls, had them in a propagator. I thought they were supposed to be easy???

My baby courgette is a little darker in colour today I think and maybe a tiny bit larger but I could be imagining that.

The rocket has just bolted with non picking and the weather, but I've lopped the flower stem off and am hoping it might grow new leaves.

Dwarf french beans are a wash out here, I've planted about 20 seeds from two different packets and have had 2 germinate. I've lobbed some in the garden directly to see if anything has happened but am not holding my breath.

I'm really shocked by the 40 year allotment wait Midnightexpress, that is ridiculous. Have you seen the Landshare site ?

Ingles, I think that is actually quite irresponsible of you posting a link to the Sarah Raven site (though I was a bit shocked at the price of her courgette plants which put me off a bit)

These are my latest garden buy, arrived yesterday so haven't had a chance to put them up yet. I've blagged a spare melon plant going so am going to see if I can get anywhere with that, which I doubt, but you never know.

oooo that's nice GUB and cheap too.
I use sparkling water bottles. I cut then in half and use the spout end. nifty eh??
Sarah Raven is bloody expensive, but she has some really nice varieties that I just haven't seen anywhere else. It's not too bad if you buy 10 packets of seeds cos you usually get one or 2 free.
I've been having success with franchi seeds recently. and you get tons in the packet the tomatoes are particularly good

Another one getting excited about courgette plants here I have planted mine out in my new allotment but I haven't been down since Saturday so I hope they haven't shrivelled in the sun.
I have planted dwarf french beans in roottrainers, they did take ages to germinate but they're off and away now. I had them in the garden a couple of years ago and they were delicious.
Ingles2 I have grown squash from Franchi Seeds and they were good, I love the designs on the packets

Oh GUB, glad it's not just me. Might try lobbing a few in (if there are any left) and see what happens.

re allotments; we're in South Lanarkshire, and apparently there are two sites (one of which has only 9 allotments) in the entire county, a large part of which is to all intents and purposes within Glasgow, so lots of people too. I noticed in the local supermarket that there's a committee trying to identify new sites so who knows. Maybe I'll get one before I start drawing my pension (which will be so miniscule that I'll need to grow all my own food by then).

Is anyone trying there luck with aubergines? My courgettes and tomatos are growing huge but my aubergines look tiny still! (The plants of course no veg yet)

Someone asked about rocket/lettuce. Tesco are doing 12 mixed varieties (already sprouting) for about £3, I have bunged them into a trough and they have taken beautifully.

Once they get going they really get going! Some of the flowers will make fruit, some not. You can see if the flower has a fruit behind it. If not - you can eat the flowers.

Libra, I'm trying aubergines again this year - never had any success before. I have planted four plants on the allotment and have got three on a sunny windowsill at home. I grew them from seed and the smallest is about 7" and the tallest is about 13" - I noticed a couple of flower buds on two of the plants on the windowsill yesterday so I'm hopefull that I will actually get some aubergines this year but I have thrown away the packet and can't remember what variety they are - oops!

Our courgette plants are still tiny and some our our earlier seedlings didn't surviving and we had to sow some seeds a bit later than we would have liked but plenty of time to get a glut.

Haven't read the thread but marking my place as my plants just went into the ground in my allotment. I haven't a clue what I am doing!

My courgettes are f*ing enormous sinc egetting back form hols. Today they have a couple of flower buds on them.

Do I need to kwep anything in mind as they seem to be taking over th green house

Went to visit my courgette babies this morning, they are growing! No water in any of the troughs so I couldn't water them but it's looking like it might rain today, they could do with a drink.

Any updates from anyone? My courgettes have now been in the garden for 2 weeks and at last seem to be growing a bit having taken this long to adjust to being potted out. (we are talking maybe 6-8 leaves at the most).

Do I really have a chance of getting any fruits? I am feeling a bit disheartened and imagining the rest of you with gigantic plants covered in flowers by now.

Just logged on to find this thread as DH has just harvested our first two courgettes and I am very excited, sad aren't I?!

DG I'm sure yours will take off now, it is still early I think. The only reason ours is the size it is is due to DH planting ridiculously early. The one I planted is still minute, I bet yours are giants in comparison.

My first two courgette plants each have 2 baby courgettes on [smil], the next two are still rather small & don't look to be doing that well & the last two haven't germinated yet .

mine are getting plenty of leaf on now, but still too early for flowers and fruit DG.... Fret not you have a least another month.
Am v. impressed with my cabbages though, and barely a nibble on them.
Will post some pics tomorrow

Oh Wynken and Snorkle, how long would say roughly between germination and first flower?

I am trying to be patient but the bloody snails/slugs have found the bed and each day I go out to see whether the leaves have grown more than they have been eaten.

OK,

From my diary...

first ones planted 22/4, germinated 26/4. Planted out around 17/5, I think first flowers were 31/5 or soon after. 2 courgettes on each currently ~1.5" long & thickness of a crayon.

second batch planted 7/5, germinated 12/5? Left in cold frame last week of May & planted out 31/5. Not yet flowering.

Hope that helps, but I think a lot depends on how long they are in a pot and how big it is. Ideally they should be planted out when they have 2 true leaves I think. Cold at night after they are planted out can set them back too.

ooh I've just found this thread and I am a novice courgette (and any veg) grower so I'd like to join you.
I planted out my pumpkin and courgette seedlings at the end of May but timed it very badly as the weather was atrocious for a week and most got blasted by wind and heavy rain. There were a few that hadn't germintated yet so they went out last week and hopefully will do better.
My seed packets (from Focus I think) said pack contains 10 seeds however each pack had 20 seeds. I planted all of them but with the early ones getting wrecked I'm quite pleased I did.
I've also got potatoes, beetroot, cauliflower, leeks, blackcurrants, strawberries and herbs.
Flowers on the potatoes (some of them) and berries starting to turn on the blackcurrants but that's it.
Courgette and rosemary soup is devine