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Courgettes
pinkmagpie
Posts: 26
in Fruit & veg
Hello everyone, new here and first post so please be nice to me lol... I have two courgette plants which I bought from a local community project. They are already bearing fruit which hasn't been fertilised yet and I am not sure what I should do. The male and female flower on one plant is already huge and it's only the end of May. Do I hand pollinate or wait for nature to take its course? Are they too far advanced for the time of year? I will upload a couple of pictures when I figure out how to, but does anybody have any information on courgette growing. Thanks in advance for any help. 
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Assuming you have now planted them in the ground, just water well and let the bees get on with it. They like a rich soil, if you can throw some compost or well rotted farm yard manure in the planting hole, that will help. You can water using a cut off pop bottle sunk in the soil at the side so that water goes well down to the roots. Feed once a week using tomato fertiliser.
Thank you Fidgetbones - no they are still in smallish pots. Should I transfer them to bigger pots now and just let them get on with it? I have posted one pic and will try and post another couple. (I couldn't get it to post more than one).
How do I post another picture? It won't seem to let me
Try reducing the size of the photo. that usually works.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
They really need planting outside in the garden ... have they been hardened off yet? If not start by putting them outside each day in a sheltered spot, and bringing them in at night ... if the night time temperatures are still above 12/14C in a week's time then they'll be ok to be planted out.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thanks Dovefromabove, yes I have been hardening them off over the last couple of days and have left them outside all night from yesterday. I don't have room for them in the garden so will be repotting into large pots so should I do that now? Sorry for all the questions
Hi pink magpie. I'm a bit of a novice courgette grower too, only one years experience. I didn't bother hand pollinating mine, I left them to it
. I think I'm right that the female flowers have the small fruits behind them and the male ones have just a stem. Mine were flowering early too, due to the high temps recently in the greenhouse.
If you're planning on keeping yours in pots, I would pot them on soon and you have to be consistent in your watering regime, mine suffered with mildew last year when I was inconsistent with watering. The fruits were good though, this year I'm hoping for better. Still learning
.
Thanks Kitty2, am going to pot them on today. When you say watering regime, how often do you water yours - it is hard to tell if the soil is dry all the way through or just on the top.