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April: Courgettes

Tip: If you are growing mange tout (see last month’s article at westonnews.co.uk), you can probably use ordinary peas and pick them young, but it is best to use seeds developed for mange tout, such as Oregon Sugar Pod. Sugar snap peas are another type again, such as Sugar Bon or Sugar Snap Delikett (all available from Suttons Seeds).

To my mind there is nothing more extravagant than eating baby courgettes 10cm/4" long, but if you grow your own you can afford to do it! I do not heat my greenhouse so sow most of my main crops in the first week of April, including courgettes.

Fill a small pot or paper pot with moist compost and push in a single seed in each – they are best sown on the sides, ie with one long egde facing upwards, about 1cm/1/2" deep. As the roots appear through the paper pot, or under an ordinary pot, they need to be potted on, maybe twice, before they are planted out after the last risk of frost, the bigger they are when planted out, the better. A local gardener once advised me to look out for frosts around the 22nd May, and it usually works – we have a brief spell of cold nights around then, and if the forecast is clear of frosts from then on, it is safe to plant out, but no guarantees!

Courgettes are greedy plants, and if I have not added compost to their final planting place in the autumn I usually dig a hole where I intend them to go and fill it with compost/manure/church meadow mulch before back-filling and planting the courgette. Water in well, and keep watered through dry spells, and you should be picking courgettes until well into September.

You can also sow the seed direct in late May – sow 2 seeds per station and remove the weakest seedling. If you have a polytunnel or greenhouse you can extend the growing season by sowing seed now on a warm sunny windowsill, keep potting on, and when they are a good size plant out in growbags or soil. You will get a shorter, earlier crop, but only of baby courgettes.