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General Items
Crop Rotations
Crop Succession
Vegetable List
Aubergines
Broad Beans
Carrots
Chilli Peppers
Courgettes
Cucmbers
Garlic
Grean Beans
Melons
Onions
Parsnips
Potatoes
Pumpkin
Spinach
Swede
Sweet Peppers
Sweetcorn
Tomatoes
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Courgettes at a Glance
Sow -
Early spring, under polythene
Depth -
3 cm
Plant out -
When no risk of frostor cold winds
Distance Apart -
1 m
Harvest -
May - July
Courgette - Zuchini
Courgettes are one of the easiest vegetables to grow. They are also very easy to grow from seed, though if you really don't want to , you will be able to buy plants ready to plant out.
The seeds which are quite large and easy to handle can be sown in warm conditions in early spring at a depth of around 3 cm.
It is worth either sowing the seeds in pots that can be kept indoors, or in a cold frame in the
vegetable plot, covered with either glass or polythene to keep them warmer,and to conserve moisture. They can then be planted out in their final growing position when they have 4 or 6 leaves and the weather is warming up, with no danger of frost or cold winds.
Courgette Plants ProducingTheir First Flowers
Courgettes will appreciate having plenty of manure underneath them and I would normally plant
them at around 1 metre spacing.
The large yellow flowers add a bit of colour to the vegetable garden but you will generally find that the first flowers produced are all males, and no fruit are produced. You will however soon find flowers with swellings at their bases which will become the courgette fruit, as shown to the left.
The fruit are best picked when about 15 cm or just a little bigger, but can be left to grow larger and be used as marrows if you wish.
As with most plants however, if you allow fruit to mature, it is likely to affect the rate of production of new flowers, and hence, fruit.
Blog items relating to courgettes
20/07/07 It's late but picked first courgettes
Most things are at least a couple of weeks behind in the garden this year including the courgettes. However we have just picked the firsts ones and mo ....
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