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How long until I can harvest my first courgette?
Charlie 224
Posts: 129
in Fruit & veg
Its looking good 
0
Charlie 224
Posts: 129
Posts
About two days I would reckon. Better pick small and tender. Turn your back and it's a marrow.
Oh wow, really? Should I be feeding it?
If it's in a pot you will have to feed it. Put it out in the garden and give it plenty of room and you may not have to. They sprawl like squashes and are sort of prickly. You will learn that if you go on holiday you will come back to a marrow. One plant will feed a couple for the summer and you'll still be giving some to the neighbours.
Enjoy.
You will need to remove the male flowers Charlie - these are the ones on the left of the picture that don't have baby courgettes behind them. The plant uses up wasted energy producing these male flowers, it is the same as squash, cucumbers and perhaps melons too, which are all the same family.
Enjoy your tender courgettes, pick them whilst young for the best taste.
Guernsey Donkey; if all the male flowers are removed there won't be any courgettes. The female flowers have to be fertilized or the female fruit will just rot and drop off before they are big enough to eat.
Okay thanks everyone, I was going to keep the male flowers on yes.
We always remove the male flowers and somehow manage to pick at least one courgette from each plant every day - have done for the past 33 or so years. The packet of seeds also says to remove the male cucumber flowers. I wonder why?
1 courgette from each plant a day!! Blimmey, looks like I will be eating a load of courgette this summer,
Oh ok, I know that with cucumbers it depends on the variety. You usually should remove the male flowers from greenhouse types otherwise the cross pollination (these varieties don't actually need pollinating at all) leads to bitter fruits, but you have to leave the male flowers on ridge varieties because they need pollinating for cucumbers to grow.