Courgette Advice please!

keza

Hi all, this is my first year growing my own veg, and im having some touble knowing what my courgette seeds are asking for!

They have all sprouted from the seed in a 32 seed tray/proporgater. They are quite big now, first two leaves and third leaf now growing, however over the last few days, one by one they are closing their two big leaves up and shrivling up....what a i doing wrong? do they want more water? more space? time to move them onto bigger pots? less heat? HELP please!

Orange_King

By the sounds of it they don't have much room so you should pot them into individual pots asap as the root growth can be considerable. How moist is the compost - they don''t like to be too wet yet need sufficient liquid to keep the soil damp.

Mine were germinated in individual 9 cm pots and have outlived these already.

foxgloves

Could be any of a number of things. If it's a heated propagator, they probably are too hot now. These are great for getting things germinated, but as soon as the seedlings have true leaves rather than the seed leaves, I move them out. Courgettes & any of the squash family are very greedy plants & quickly outgrow the available nutrients in the soil, so potting them on into their individual pots might be your best option. From the sound of them, that's what I'd do if they were mine.

keza

thanks very much i will do it now shall i leave them in the greenhouse or take them out now ?

Orange_King

With the weather the way it is you could certainly bring them out for a breath of air during the day and put them back in at night until you are confident the frosts have passed in Essex!

Last year I found that mine preferred their final resting place much more than upsizing pots every week or two so if you have a cloche or poly tunnel for night cover you could try that.

Sally_A

Mine get sown into the larger (6inch?) shallower pots, and then are put outside towards the end of May, in a hole that's been filled with horse muck/compost etc.

They do like their root space to get going, so suggest pot on a s a p into a much larger pot.

When the first true leaves appear they can be shunted into an outdoor unheated greenhouse.

wallbash

They have all sprouted from the seed in a 32 seed tray/proporgater.

How many plants do you require . Or have you an arrangement with Tesco's?

annie123

If it's the first 2 big leave that came out, they are the seed leaves and they die off, this is normal.

I hope you haven't filled all 32 spaces with courgettes............that would be a lot of courgettes!

Lotus-eater

I've got 11 courgettes and that was a bit of a counting mistake, I thought I only had 9.
And we eat alot of courgettes and freeze alot too.

I would take the remaining ones out and repot them, like yesterday, into much much bigger pots, the roots must be going round and round, tease as many out as you can. Then give water and leave well alone for a while.

rosie383

Even if you eat many courgettes, and bearing in mind that they don't freeze well, you have far too many.
We eat loads as a family and I was giving away bags of courgettes last year, making chutneys etc and that was just from 3 plants.
I have 16 which have germinated, but mine are being potted up to sell at the car boot. People will very gladly buy them for maybe 75p each. Each penny I make will go into my allotment fund.
HTH

valk_scot

The first two leaves are the seed leaves and these do normally shrivel up and die back. Your seedlings should be repotted at this stage though, once the first true leaf starts to develop.

I usually grow 6-6 courgette plants, usually two each of four varieties. (Yellow, round, standard green, striped.) I just start them off with 2 seeds in 3" pots..only 8 pots needed after all, then I pich out the weeker plant once they get going. Eight plants give more than enough courgettes for our family of four and at peak production I'm often reduced to leaving courgettes on the neighbours' doorsteps under cover of darkness, there's so many. Given that a courgette plant needs a growing space of 30 inches across, normally, 32 plants will probably cover the average suburban garden and feed most of the village.