Courgette – Sunstripe

Planning your site

Before planting out your courgettes, make planting pockets around a meter apart. Do this by making a hole about a spade’s depth and width and fill it with a mixture of compost or well-rotted manure and soil. You need to pick a sunny spot which is protected from strong winds as courgettes can get blown around. Courgette plants take up a fair amount of space, much bigger than you think looking at your tidy little plants. The leaves can be very large and will shade out anything growing nearby so take this into account when planning your space.  You could plant some lettuces in between for a quick salad crop before the courgettes fill the space, or beans or sweetcorn work well as they grow tall and don’t shade out the courgettes. This layering technique is called the Three sisters – it’s a tradition Native American growing system that utilises space, light, and harvesting times.

Growing tips

Courgettes are hungry, thirsty plants and will benefit from a rich soil. Sprinkle some seaweed / poultry manure pellets a metre around the planting hole. When you water, try not to get water on the leaves. One tip is to sink a 15cm pot alongside the plants when planting out. If you water into the pot, it will help ensure that water goes right down to the roots and doesn’t sit around the neck of the plant, which can lead to rotting. We remmomend a feed every 10-14 days, with a high potash liquid fertiliser once the first fruits start to swell.

What to watch out for

Slugs can sometimes be a problem, we like putting sheep’s wool around the base of the plants as the slugs and snails don’t like crawling over it. You can buy wool pellets from garden centres.
If you see a white dusty deposit on the leaves this could be powdery mildew. Powdery mildew is a type of fungus and is easily treating organically by spraying water and milk onto the affected areas. Mix 1 part milk to 3 parts water and spray liberally. It should clear up really quickly!