Notoriously generous plants, add a courgette or two to your plot and you’ll be eating them all summer long!
Courgettes are well-known amongst the gardening community for producing bumper harvests throughout the summer months. They’re a hassle-free crop to grow and once established, they grow at real speed and can form up to 30 fruits per plant. Given their capacity for growth, you’ll need a healthy appetite to tuck into them fresh from the plant, but if you’re finding the glut is coming too thick and fast, try freezing some for use throughout winter months, too.
Step-by-step
1. Starting in pots in late spring is a good way of controlling growing conditions and protecting young plants from the elements. Push two seeds on their sides 2-3cm deep into a 9cm pot filled with good-quality compost.
2. Water the soil well and try to maintain a temperature of 15-20°C in order to encourage a 100 per cent germination rate. Irrigate regularly once the soil feels dry and seedlings should appear within two weeks.
3. To avoid confusion with other sowings, it’s a good idea to label your courgette pots with their variety name.
This will ensure that the correct care is given to your crops from the very first stage of growth.
4. The weaker of the two seedlings in each pot will need to be removed. It can be identified by stunted growth, smaller leaves and a thinner stem. Doing this will allow the stronger specimen to develop further.
5. When the crops have five to six leaves, it’s time to transplant your courgettes to the veg bed. Choose a sunny spot with fertile, well-drained soil and be sure to keep to a spacing of 90cm between each crop.
6. Irrigate the soil thoroughly to reduce the risk of stress to the roots caused by moving them from containers to outside conditions. This will ensure that your edibles can continue to grow at a speedy rate.
7. You can recycle old lolly sticks once they’ve been washed and use them as a label to push into the ground next to your young plants. Make sure that it is stuck firmly in the soil to prevent it from blowing away in windy weather.
8. Your courgettes will soon develop huge yellow flowers. Water regularly as these plants will be very thirsty, especially during the hot summer days. Feed every two weeks
