Courgettes are surprisingly easy to grow and bound to impress your family and friends. As courgettes need some warmth as they’re growing, they need to remain indoors for the first few weeks that they grow, with the best time to start growing courgette seeds indoors being at the end of April. Remember to keep the flower of the courgette for our recipe below!
Begin to sow your seeds in small pots that are filled with seed compost. Place only one seed in each pot, to ensure they get enough space. Water gently and then leave on a south facing window to to let them soak up the warmth.
How to Plant
After 3-4 weeks of growing your courgette seeds on the window sill, move the seedlings to a bigger pot, filled with fresh compost, giving the courgettes more room to grow and thrive. Keep the pot indoors, as to move it outdoors at this stage may give the courgettes a shock. To harden up the courgettes, leave them outdoors for a few hours at a time, to let them get acclimatised to the outdoor climate. Keep doing this for a week to ten days, building up the amount of time the courgettes spend outside, till you can properly move the courgettes into a raised bed, once the weather is good and warm.
Harvest your courgettes as soon as they reach the right size, cutting the courgette at the base with a sharp knife to make sure that the plant can continue to produce further courgettes.
For a wonderful new way to eat courgettes, use the beautiful yellow flowers stuffed with cheese as a starter:
Stuff courgette flowers with herbs and cheese and fry them briefly; dip in light batter and deep fry them; or toss in olive oil until just wilted, then stir through risottos. The flowers don’t last so pick and cook them on the same day.