Cropping Courgettes



Courgette - Variety Zucchini - 13th August 2012

 

Complaints of slow growth and slow ripening of crops are very common with gardeners this year. My courgettes have certainly been slow to get into production, but between my three plants I am now getting a courgette every other day.  Initially I lost a couple of fruit due to rot starting at the tips, but that problem has been remedied by remembering to place small pieces of slate under the fruit to stop them having contact with the soil.

So long as one remembers to keep harvesting the courgettes when the fruit are small the plants will continue to crop until the first frosts arrive. It is probably a limited number of courgettes that you can use raw in salads or as a cooked vegetable.  The best way of dealing with surpluses is, I think, to make soup, most especially if you are away for a few days and come home to small marrows rather than courgettes. Allowing the fruit to become too big will reduce the productivity of your plant greatly. All its energies go into feeding the," cuckoo," fruit.