What to do with courgettes?

Hi there,

I was wondering if someone in here could help me. My son has decided to start growing some veg in our unused greenhouse... all has been going well until now :(

His courgette plants have been growing really well but the female flowers grew way before the male flowers and have already wilted and the crop has started to rot... we now have lots of male flowers. What would be the best thing to do? Do I need to cut off the rotting courgettes?

Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks :gnthb:

 

Cut them off ,anything rotting is not going to be any use, I only grow one plant as we are not very fond and i struggle to use the courgettes from that.

They must be getting fertilised as you would have no fruit at all.

I think they are better outside as they can take over a greenhouse if you pamper them

 

Welcome to the forum Sascha.
Yes I would take off the little rotten courgettes. They're like that because as you rightly guessed the flowers hadn't been pollinated.
Don't worry. The plants will do plenty more flowers and you'll get courgettes.
Leave the greenhouse door open so the insects can get in to pollinate or do it yourself by rubbing a cotton wool ball or something over the stamens in the male flower then over the centres of the female flowers.
Hope you get a great crop.

 

Thanks for such quick replies, about to follow your advice now.... Will I need to do the same with cumcumber flowers too? I've been leaving the greenhouse door open and have seen plenty of bees in there.

I'm sure I'll be back with plenty more questions as I haven't got a clue but am enjoying seeing how much my son is loving taking care of everything.

Thanks again

 

If there's plenty of bees getting into the greenhouse you don't have to do anything to anything.
The bees will do it all for you. Unfortunately they are likely to be sacrificial bees as they are not very good at finding their way back out. Shame.
As Pamsdish says, there is really no need to have courgettes in the greenhouse. They do get very big and take up a lot of space and they get on just fine outdoors.
Start looking for recipes for courgettes. You'll be overrun with them.
I find one plant for each person in the house gives you all the courgettes you could ever want to eat - and more.