Courgette Help

We're growing three courgette plants. So far we've only had one Courgette (plenty of flowers though). The flower at the tip of the courgette has now come off. Is this the right time to harvest a courgette, as it is still quite small? Should I wait and see if the courgette will grow bigger without the flower at the end?

When they get to about 4/5 inches-if you don't pick they just keep getting bigger and that slows down production

Mine have been very slow indeed this year & a lot of the baby ones have fallen off before being edible size, really tiny.

I think it's just the weather. 

The flowers are still on all the tiny courgettes on my plants but from memory I'm fairly certain they usually carry on growing once the flower has dropped off. Just keep an eye on it.

Hello courgette growers,

As long as I have enough of a crop, I always eat my baby courgettes. They are delicious, and many people think of them as a delicacy. The flowers are edible too, but they should only be eaten when you're happy that you've enough courgette fruits.

Emma

gardenersworld.com team

Let it grow to 4 - 5" as previously said. You will then get a good follow on crop if you keep doing that.

I still haven't had a single courgette this year.  I saw some flowers on them today so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Still waiting for mine to produce anything worth eating. Think i will blame the weather. Its dissapointing the year starts off so well and then it rains and rains and rains.

Mine have had 3 flowers amongst them , I planted them out 5 week ago . They havent grown much at all since . Taking a look yesterday between showers and I wished I had left them in the green house with the cucumbers. They have flowers on now and climbing well . I am growing some more in the green house. Its experiment time .I usualy harvest when around 5 ins .

Has anyone any tips for growing them in the greenhouse- ?

I would think the main concern with growing them in the greenhouse would be watering especially in pots. I grow mine outside in pots and they take a lot of water in sunny weather. ( Not this year of course ) Up to now I have had 3 courgettes off four plants but every thing is slow.

Courgettes really need to be outside, a friend of mine new to gardening planted 25 her first year of growing . She ended up looking a bit like a courgette she had eaten so many. Have grown cucumbers in the greenhouse, they are a small kind, lunchbox cucumber i think they were called. They taste like cucumbers should absolutely delicious.

I've two courgette plants in pots in the greenhouse (unheated). I must have had around 16 courgettes off each plant so far and they are still producing more flowers. I water them every day and feed once a week. I am so pleased that the other three plants died that I put outside months

My cougettes were growing well and then with all of this rain and no sun then slugs although I put nemetodes down the courgettes have all but gone.      The same wth my broad beans and runner beans.     My problem is we are going to USA for 2 weeks on Saturday  so do I put more cougette plants in the ground before then and also put runner beans straight into the ground or would I be better off buying some plants to bring on in the greenhouse while we are away.      Son is not into gardening but he would go and water the green house for me.     Also if I put some runner beans in pots before I go by the time we get back on Aug 1st they would have grown ready to go out and hopefully the weather would have improved. Thje forecast is for heat wave in September so all may not be lost.     Any advice would be greatfully received.

mine are quite slow too but managed to get 4 mini ones off mine about 8 cm long and my first year of attempting veg. i too have had enough of all this rain .but on a plus side am using any rain water i catch in my small buckets and watering can to water  veg plants in my greenhouse.whilst we were on holiday i used plastic bottles with a small hole in the cap and tipped upside down to water plants in the greenhouse whilst we were away and my melon ,pepper,cucumber,tomato and sweetcorn plants looked great.