courgettes

Yanski

Hi all,
My courgettes are coming on apace and looking good (as far as I can tell ). It would seem that the plants have both male and female flowers on them. I have one huge flower with a courgette behind it but there are other stalks with flowers on the end that are simply that. I am assuming these are the male ones. Should I allow these to flower, pollinate or cut them down?
It may sound silly but I have never seen a courgette other than in the supermarket and I was really excited to see the flower, it was massive

Ian

poppyoscar_3

I always just left them - I guess they have to pollinate!!

But you can eat them - I saw a recipe somewhere for them frittered!!!

PO xxx

flea72

once the flowers are fully open, remove them - they will have done the pollinating they need to do, and are now just sucking the life out of the rest of the plant.

hth Flea

katskorner

I always remove them as flea says. Never tried cooking them but should really at some point!

Larumbelle

Courgette flowers are lovely!!! Nicer than courgettes themselves in my opinion! Any italian recipe book should have have a recipe, jamie oliver and hugh f-w both have recipes too. If not there is one here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/deepfriedcourgettefl_70232.shtml

pickledtink

I pick them when fully wide open. Stuff with a spoonful of garlic cream cheese. Twist the tops to close , dust in flour and shallow saute, Quick , easy and delicious.

mary43

Thanks...........didn't know you could eat the flowers as well.

Just a query about golden courgettes......we've never had them before (this was pure fluke as I bought them from local shop who were selling the plants for someone)
How big do the courgettes grow and what size is best to pick them ?

GrillMonkey

I was watching river cottage on demand yesterday and he did courgette fritters with the flowers, looked really nice

I think the recipe is on the river cottage website

katskorner

courgettes grow into marrows if you let them! Pick them at about 6 inches and they will keep coming for ages. The bigger you let them get, the fewer the plant will produce.

mary43

Thanks. I knew that's what happened with the green ones but wasn't sure about these golden ones, whether we had to pick them when they got to a certain size.