The great courgette glut
Jayne Hickling from Allotment Cooks discusses her glut of courgettes
Having failed to successfully grow a single courgette plant from seed last year; I felt certain that the glorious courgette, and his bigger brother the marrow, would continue to tease me from the plots of other more experienced allotmenteers who seemed to manage to grow glorious amounts of the stunning vegetable (or is it a fruit??) to the point of not being able to “give it away”. Some did come my way though, donated along with the feeling of failure for not having managed to produce my own.
So determined was I not miss out this year, that I set my sights on a pure “cert” and managed to germinate twelve lovely seedlings. I managed to stop myself from the tempting possibility of planting out too early, when the frost may have taken them from me. Inevitably, due to the late start to the warmer season this year, some were lost. And so, with my four precious courgette plants and the promise of frost free nights I took my growing plants, with their developing flowers, to the allotment and planted them. They grew. Then they continued to grow- although another was lost to the battle of the slugs. And then… fruit appeared. The first tiny courgette showed so much promise, but dropped nose first to the soil and went mouldy. Lesson learnt! And then they grew some more, propped up off the ground to avoid rot or pests.
Who would have thought, this time last year that I would be suffering from courgette overload- and yet here I am.