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Tuesday 19 June 2012

Courgettes

The humble courgette can be a maligned vegetable but in this household it is considered to be one of the finest of summer vegetables.
Today was the first harvest of two fine sweet courgettes. Picked young with unblemished fresh skin they were greeted with delight.
I grow my courgettes in the polytunnels with great success. To keep them out of the way of other plants I grow each one in a large tub trug with good sized drainage holes. The tub trug keeps them at an easy picking height and out of draughts. It is deep enough to give them a generous root run and I fill the trug with home made compost, this doesn't need to be perfectly rotted. It feeds them as they grow and retains more water than commercial composts. The black walls of the tub trug warm up and release heat during the evening and night keeping the plants cosily warm.
I grow a number of varieties, with green, yellow and ribbed fruits. 'Tuscany' is a good smooth green variety producing many small fruits. Keeping picking the fruit before they get beyond 10 inches, or 25cm, and they will be firm and sweet with a soft skin.Frequent picking will ensure they keep producing.
Try to avoid getting the flowers wet when watering, it can cause rot at the end of the courgette. Watering is easy when the plants are contained, you can give each plant a good soaking. Better to give regular generous watering with dry intervals, the plants dislike being kept continuously damp and this, together with cooler conditions, is why they don't do well for me outdoors.
Use in a variety of dishes and enjoy as a vegetable sliced finely and fried with garlic in butter. Delicious.

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