Courgettes are known for being incredibly productive - with just two or three plants, the average family can eat courgettes all summer long. Read on to discover how to grow your own courgettes, from sowing 1 or 2 courgette seeds to harvesting kilos of courgettes all summer long.
General information about courgettes
Zucchini is a warm season crop and comes in a variety of colours and shapes. You can choose from compact, bushy or trailing varieties. Compact varieties are good for containers - really anywhere you don't have much space - while trailing varieties can be trained as climbers to grow on supports such as trellis or wire mesh.
Green courgettes are always popular, but try some of their more charismatic cousins, including yellow-fruited varieties, striped or ribbed varieties, and even round ones. The Striato 'D'Italia is my personal favourite, a very firm and flavoursome courgette (third in the list above).
The best location to grow your courgettes :
The courgette belongs to the pumpkin family and, therefore, to grow well, they need to bathe in warmth and sun. Also protect them from strong winds, so that bees and other insects can pollinate the flowers in peace.
Their robust growth and large leaves make them hungry eaters. Add plenty of garden compost or well-rotted manure to the soil before planting. You can even plant courgettes on top of a compost heap - if you don't need the compost until the autumn.
How do you sow zucchini?
You can sow courgettes directly outdoors after the last frost date (after 15th May). Make a hole in the soil about 1cm deep and put two seeds in it. Cover them again and place a bell jar over the top to act as a miniature greenhouse to speed things up. As the seedlings emerge, remove the weakest ones so that there is only one in each spot. Direct sowing like this works well, but I like to get a head start by sowing a few weeks earlier in the greenhouse or indoors (around mid-April).
Fill p9 pots with potting soil and sow one seed per pot. Place your seed on its side. They germinate fastest with a little warmth, but as long as you can guarantee a frost-free environment, they will germinate. At room temperature, the seeds take about 7 to 12 days.
In the video below Tom shows you how to pre-sow courgettes . He uses a tray with large plugs and later, when your seedling has a 2nd pair of leaves, he transplants the seedlings to a P9 pot. From mid-May you can plant your courgettes outside.
growing zucchini in height
Are you up for a challenge or do you have a smaller vegetable garden? Then I recommend the Black Forrest climbing courgette. I grew this in my vegetable garden with the help of the rose arch in combination with support netting . This way you create a climbing frame and you can grow other crops under the rose arch; e.g. lettuce , lettuce , spinach , ... These plants appreciate a bit of shade in the summer.
How and when to plant zucchini?
courgettes should be planted out as soon as the risk of night frost has passed (around mid-May). Prepare plants for life outside by gradually acclimatising them for one to two weeks in advance. To start, place them outside in a sheltered spot for a while during the day and then gradually increase the time they are outside. Plant them out as soon as there is no risk of frost. This process is called hardening off.
Planting couldn’t be easier. Dig a hole twice as big and deep as your p9 pot in the prepared soil. Remove the young plant from its pot. Place it in the hole and fill the soil around it again. Water thoroughly at the end. Leave 1 meter between each plant.
Growing Zucchini: Tips for Caring for Your Plant
When you plant out your courgette it is a matter of taking good care of your plant. In return you will get courgettes in return all summer and often a large part in the autumn.
Water your courgettes well and add some mulch occasionally to retain moisture in the soil for longer.
Plants tend to produce only male flowers at first, and pollination can be slow to get going anyway, especially in cool or damp weather. If there are few pollinating insects on the ground—or rather, in the air—you can hand-pollinate flowers by transferring pollen from a male flower directly to an open female flower.
At the top is a male flower: a flower on a flower stem. At the bottom is a female flower, you can recognize this by the fruit (the zucchini) on which the flower sits. It is useful to grow 2 zucchini plants in your vegetable garden. This way you have a better chance of good pollination. If a zucchini is not pollinated well, the end of your zucchini will eventually turn brown and it will die instead of growing further.
The flowers are also delicious to eat, usually stuffed or just dipped in batter and then fried . But only pick the male flowers or you won't get any fruit!
Mildew on zucchini
Powdery mildew can be a problem on the leaves later in the season. Keeping the plants well watered and leaving plenty of space between plants for good air circulation can help slow the spread of this disease. If your zucchini gets powdery mildew, don’t worry too much because the plants can usually handle it.
Important note: Some courgettes have colour variations on their leaves. This is therefore not mildew. Mildew is recognised by a white powdery layer that spreads over the entire plant, especially on top of the leaves. Downy mildew is less common and is most common in cool and humid conditions when the foliage cannot dry.
Do you see that certain leaves are affected? Cut them away. You can also prune away older leaves (these will turn brown anyway once they have given all their energy). This keeps the plant healthy.
Usually your plant recovers quite quickly. Do you notice that your plant is suffering from mildew? Then you can opt to treat with a fungicide (= anti-fungal product).
How to harvest zucchini?
Start cutting or twisting zucchini when they are still small. Smaller zucchini have a denser, nuttier flesh and, trust me, are much better tasting. If you’ve ever been turned off by zucchini , it’s probably because you’ve let them grow into large, watery zucchinis full of big seeds . Check the plants often—at least every other day—and pick the zucchini as soon as it reaches a usable size.
Finally, about growing zucchini
So that's all I know about growing courgettes. Hopefully you'll find the many tips useful and harvest kilos of courgettes yourself.
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Warm greetings, Sarah
