Grow little green torpedos

Courgettes are easy and prolific crops for the veg patch. Helen Billiald explains how to cultivate them

Courgettes are easy and prolific crops for the veg patch. Here’s how to cultivate them

Courgettes are the Labradors of the vegetable garden: loyal and desperately keen to please but with a predisposition to becoming rapidly overweight. The secret (with courgettes) is to keep picking and have enough imagination in the kitchen to do their generous harvest justice. You can eat teeny courgettes raw, fry the bright yellow flowers in batter, grill, bake, stuff, fry or griddle the larger fruit.

Courgettes may be simple to grow, but they must have warmth. So just wait a little longer – if planted out too soon your seedlings will be killed by frost or eaten by slugs and snails as they fail to spark into growth. ➤

You can sow under cover in a propagator, greenhouse or on a sunny windowsill in late April or early May then plant out late May to early June, using cloches or fleece to help plants acclimatise to the outside world. You could also sow direct once the ground has warmed in early June but you’re more at risk of mice stealing seed, and young seedlings quickly being devastated by slugs and snails.

If you want to be sure of a crop this summer, sow once in late April, then again in mid-June. Courgettes start to crop around eight weeks after planting out so, by succession sowing, your second batch should be hitting their stride in late August-early September.

Pick a sunny spot and give plants 90cm (3ft) spacing, so they don’t overshadow their neighbours. Add a really generous quantity of well-rotted compost or manure; courgettes need a fertile, moisture-retaining soil to keep growing and cropping through the summer. If the ground is too dry, plants are susceptible to powdery mildew or aborting fruit. Mulch around them to retain soil moisture and minimise weeds. If growing in a (large) pot, make sure it’s well-watered and fed.

As the courgettes start to bloom you’ll notice male and female flowers. The females have a small swelling behind the petals that develops into fruit. Early in the season you may find male flowers but no females, or that the females fail to develop. Pick off any that start to rot and be patient – as the weather warms, plants switch into full cropping mode. Then it’s up to you to pick fruit every two or three days, even if it’s to give away at the garden gate, to keep the plants producing and prevent any swollen monsters developing.

Bear in mind, when deciding how many to sow, that a thriving courgette plant produces four fruit a week.

Harvest courgettes regularly to keep plants productive Female flowers (left) have an ovary behind the petals, which swells to become the fruit. Pollen needs to land on the knobbly central stigma to achieve fertilisation. Male flowers (right) have longer stems, and a fused stamen covered in yellow pollen