This is the second year that I have grown courgettes (known as zucchini in the US) in pots, this another vegetable that is quite happy being grown in a container.
For once I am actually growing mine in the recommended sized pot which is 10″/25cms. You can add up to 30% manure to your compost as they like very rich soil, I did not have any so I added a small hand full of pelleted organic chicken manure and will feed with organic liquid seaweed which will hopefully make up for the lack of manure.
You can sow courgette seeds indoors in March and April, outdoors May and June, so you can still sow some seeds. They usually take about 8 – 18 days to germinate, it should be nearer 8 days this time of year. I normally sow mine in 3″ pots and transplant into the 10″ pot when they look like they have outgrown the small one. If you sow them early in the year do not plant out until late spring and all chance of frost is gone as they are very tender. Although it is not so much of a problem if you are growing them in pots as you can just bring them indoors for the night if frost is forecast.
They like a position in full sun if possible but don’t let them dry out in hot weather. I have mulched my pots with bark or stones, it is amazing the difference mulching the pots makes, you don’t realise quite how much water is lost due to evaporation. I tend to decide if they need watering or not by the weight of the pot as I normally water them by sticking them in a big bucket of water and letting them soak up what they need. Or you can poke your finger into the compost and check if it is still damp, if the leaves are starting to wilt water straight away.
I start to feed mine once a week or so with liquid organic tomato fertiliser once the courgettes start to form. If the compost is very dry water with plain water first or you could scorch the roots.
If you have grown courgettes before you will know that they tend to trail along the ground frequently growing at least a couple of inches a day with the courgettes forming all along the new growth. So to solve the problem of having them trailing all over the place I am going to grow mine up canes. I will put 3 or 4 pots together with a cane in each pot and tie the canes together at the top to make a wigwam. As the courgettes grow tie them to the cane preferably using that soft green garden string, as it does less damage to the plants, it is about 70p for a ball of it from the home and garden shop that I can’t remember the proper name of in Pier Street. Pinch out the tips when they reach the top of the canes.
Harvest your courgettes when they are no more than 6″ long by cutting them off with a sharp knife. Towards the end of the season you can let a few of them grow bigger so you have marrows.
Courgettes are extremely versatile they can be grated and eaten raw in salads, cooked as a side dish and there is a huge range of recipes in which they feature as the main ingredient.
Marigolds and nasturtiums are good companions for courgettes
Pests and diseases.
The most common problem that you will encounter growing courgettes is mildew caused by poor air-flow and dry roots. If it gets really bad you can spray the plants weekly with Potassium Bicarbonate or if all else fails Bordeaux Mixture which is copper sulphate and slaked lime both are available from The Organic Gardening Catalogue.
Slugs are very fond of young young courgette leaves but you do have less trouble with them in containers. A circle of salt on the ground around the pots in dry weather does tend to solve the problem.
They are also prone to cucumber mosaic virus which is spread by sap feeding insects, the worst culprit being aphids. The disease causes mottled, puckered leaves that eventually turn yellow and the courgettes go sort of lumpy and shrivelled. Keep plenty of plants that encourage beneficial insects near to them and eliminate aphids as soon as you see any. There is no cure for this disease, you can buy mosaic resistant varieties but it is no guarantee.
Just starting to grow our own courgettes in pots so this is very helpful, thanks! Was rather alarmed when watering them tonight to see that our biggest specimen has developed yellow spots on some leaves, which sounds like mosaic virus from the descriptions I’ve read online. Good tip too about training them up canes: ours are spilling over the edges of our (large) pots so this is an excellent idea.
It might be an idea to cut that leaf off, not sure if it would stop the spread if you have mosaic disease. It might be worth a try, if it has recently been added by aphids and not spread to the rest of the plant.
You could plant sow 2 or 3 more seeds just in case, I have a couple of spares that I sowed about 10 days ago, so I don’t get them all at once or have replacements.
It is great to hear of so many people who are growing their own veggies, some who have never done so before and had no idea you could grow so many things in pots.
Good luck with the courgettes.
Hello, I came searching for help with my courgettes and the pests that adore them and found your site, thank you so much for all the advice found. I am a first time greenhouse and container gardener and its all going well except for the courgettes as they started to develop holes in their leaves. Now I know what do though and it isnt all doom and gloom and possible to control thankfully.
Thank you
Donna
Thanks Angie. I did give all four of our courgette plants a good spray of organic pesticide last night after I discovered it, but I suspect that’s shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Two of the plants look to be infected, and at lunchtime today when I was at home, the most affected leaf on the biggest plant had started getting holes in it which I believe is the next stage.
Really we should have been applying pesticide from the start but of course as beginners we didn’t think of that!
We are also growing carrots, beetroot and tomatoes, all in containers. Our courgettes are in small rectangular ceramic sinks (Butler sinks or Belfast sinks) which are an excellent size and have built-in drainage with the plughole. They also look nice. Not much good if the plants die though!
If a courgette is affected by yellow mosaic virus, and the plants come out all knobbly, are they still edible?
Hi John
As far as I know (Please anyone correct me if I am wrong) spraying won’t actually deter them, all you can do is check your plants daily for aphids and deal with them as they appear. You could put a pot of nasturtiums near to them as a sacrificial plant. Very often aphids will go for the nasturtium in preference to your veggies.
I favour blasting my aphids with a spray bottle full of water with a few drops of mild washing up liquid in it. I have just started writing about aphids which I will try and post it later tonight.
I love seeing plants in ceramic sinks, I used to have a couple years ago, a lot of my plants are in old plastic storage boxes ATM. I am going to build some nice big wooden planters over the winter which I usually put wheels on so I can move them easily.
Last year my courgettes had mosaic virus really badly, some of the knobbly ones had a very strange spongy texture and were no good at all, yet others on the same plant were fine.
If you have any questions about growing anything please ask, I am often at a loss to know what to post about and it would give me the chance to write about something someone wants to know. If I don’t know I am am sure someone else with our permaculture group will.
You or anyone can send questions to me at: ventnorpermaculture(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk
Funny you should mention washing-up liquid; my mother mentioned it this evening when I told her about the aphid problem! Courgettes seem to be free of aphids this evening but I did notice lots of little black specks on one of the flower buds, which I presume is another insect visitor. The problem with getting rid of them by hand is that courgette stems are spiky and painful to get your fingers near, and the insects always seem to be right at the bottom where all the stems meet!
As for what I (and other new veggie growers) want to know about – well, where to begin! Anything about the sort of tips growers only learn by experience and that aren’t covered in the books or on the back of the packet; soil types (we’re growing in pots but hoping to move to a veggie patch in our garden next year, but have no idea how to find out what kind of soil we have); succession sowing (can you sow outside the recommended dates on the packet for continuous harvests?); and so on!
I’m also interested in the wider issues of self-sufficiency, energy saving and microgeneration, and the whole lifestyle changes which I think we are all going to have to make in the face of rocketing oil prices and carbon reduction. I only discovered your blog when searching for mosaic virus on courgettes last night so I’ll have a look around it over the next few days!
Hi John
A spray bottle will reach those aphids in spiky awkward areas.
I have just posted about growing lettuce (can be grown for most of the year) which I hope you will find useful and I will being covering lots of other veg as well.
Usually seeds sown outside the recommended dates need a higher or lower (lettuce again) temperature or will not be ready for harvesting before frosts arrive. You can compensate for that and extend the growing season by covering with fleece, a cloche or using a mini/ normal sized greenhouse. For the past few years I have used one of those plastic covered mini greenhouses it is about 4ft high and 18 inches wide that you can buy for under a tenner. My seeds that I have started indoors go in there first, then I grow my tomatoes in there until they are about a foot high and ready to go outside. I now have an aubergine and peppers growing in it after removing the top two shelves. Lettuce will go in there when the frosts start.
I have sown all sorts of seeds outside of the dates with success but I am in one of the mildest places in the UK.
There will be an article all about soil and what veggies prefer what and it will cover ph levels.
Ventnor Permaculture as a whole are all also interested in the wider issues of self-sufficiency, energy saving and microgeneration, and lifestyle changes etc and will be writing about those issues too. The subject of microgeneration really gets me angry due to the refusal of the government to remove planning restrictions on solar panels and wind turbines. They could start helping people generate their own power rather than hinder them. It is not in their best interests to be more helpful as they will lose vast amounts of revenue from VAT on gas and electric as well as possible kickbacks from the energy companies.
This site was only started 8 weeks ago this coming Sunday and there is so much that we want to cover.
Thanks Angie, I look forward to all that.
Another problem with microgeneration is the government’s refusal to introduce feed-in tariffs which would enable people with wind turbines and photovoltaic panels to sell their electricity back to the grid at a premium. These are in place in Germany which has made it the world leader in domestic PV panels. There was an amendment debated in the House of Commons on this point last month but as far as I am aware it was not passed. I wrote to my MP (Peter Robinson, the new First Minister for NI) and he said he would vote for the amendment but in the event he wasn’t in the Commons that day.
Still, rising oil prices will see a change in attitudes soon both from government and consumer alike, I think.
Oh and as a relatively old hand at blogging, you’re doing brilliantly and the posts are very well designed. If you do find yourself struggling to know what to write about, my advice is don’t knock yourself out trying to keep up a post every day: a few posts a week, regularly, is enough to keep you up in the Google rankings (it was when searching for yellow mosiac virus that I found you in the first place!). Keep up the good work!
Thank you.
I met a couple of friends on Monday that I have not seen in a while and they said that Ventnor Permaculture Blog had inspired them to grow vegetables for the first time ever.
Hearing that from them and your comments make it well worth the effort.
I have had previous writing experience and I enjoy researching which has its drawbacks as I often find myself off on a tangent.
Ideas for posts are coming thick and fast at the moment, finding the time to write them is the problem.
Hi
I have read your excellent advice but I fear that I may too have fallen to the dread disease. It is my first year as a gardener (If I can be so bold as to address myself in this way!) and I planted 3 courgettes and 3 cucumbers. They grew brilliantly inside but since they have grown up and moved out the seem to be shrinking. The leaves have turned white and some of them have curled up. The flowers have shut and some of them haven’t opened at all. Are they doomed? Is it to late for emergency planting of new seeds?
Thanks for your help.
Hi Angie
I got your advice about courgettes near the top of the list when I Googled “growing courgettes”-thanks for the tips. We have just moved to a house in South West France and have got 2 plants so far in pots. The plants have grown very fast in the heat but it was after a dull and damp day and night that we suddenly found a flower had opened. I will try your tip re: canes and string. The ground is too hard most days to dig new beds for planting so buying young plants at the market for a few containers on the wee patio seemed like are a good way to start growing herbs, salad and some veg.
Have you got any advice on growing coriander, please? It has got some pretty flowers and some seeds after about 3 weeks, but I was hoping for leaves for curries and salads!
Thanks in advance
Janet (a Scot exiled in Tarn et Garonne)
Hi Vanessa
Yes, you are a gardener. Experience does not exclude you from pests and diseases, I could be seen in desperation yesterday evening spraying my own courgettes with Bordeaux Mixture and I hate having to use anything on them. The leaves were white and it was a case of spray or lose the plants.
So I would suggest spraying with the Bordeaux Mixture, it is not too expensive think my tub of it was about £2 – £3 and you can get it from most garden centres & DIY places. Your plants might recover, keep feeding and watering and see what happens.
It only takes about 10 days for seeds to germinate so you could start some more off as well. Or I went to a school fete last weekend and they were selling courgette plants for about 20p each there and they will soon grow at this time of year.
Will keep my fingers crossed for you. Let us know how it goes. Good luck
Angie
Hi Janet
Sounds like you will be eating your own courgettes before much longer.
Hopefully it will be easier to dig your beds in the autumn, or you can try watering the ground and covering with black plastic for a couple of weeks and you might be able to dig it earlier then. You can dig in you spent compost from your pots to help provide organic matter for your soil.
Although coriander likes to be warm and sunny if it is too hot it will bolt. In other words it will concentrate on producing seeds rather than lots of lovely leaves. As it does bolt so easily I would suggest planting a few seeds about once a month to ensure you have a supply of leaves. You could try removing the seed stalks and seeds but it is probably too late for that, I would let the seeds mature and dry out then you can keep them to sow later or put them in a jar when fully dry and grind your own coriander spice whenever you need it.
You can sow new seeds outside, probably up to September where you are. Sow indoors from then on to grow on a windowsill up until the spring. Make sure the plants are well watered and if it is very hot move your pots into an area where they won’t get full sun for all of the day. Keep picking the leaves as soon as you have a reasonable amount of them, if you end up with too many to use, finely chop them and put a teaspoon into each section of an ice cube tray and top up with water. Once frozen you can tip them into a freezer bag or container to store in the freezer and add as many as you need towards the end of cooking. Or freeze the leaves and stalks on a baking tray, then crumble the leaves into a bag to store, it is much better to treat all herbs that way rather than drying, keeps the colour and the taste. Not a lot of good for salads but at least you will be able to use it in your curries.
Hope you get a good supply of leaves soon.
Angie
Just starting to get my first fruits from my plants (I have three in a large tub- probably a bit crowded..) but anyway- they are rather small to say the least. Should I cut them off now to encourage new growth, or wait and see if they get a bit bigger? Thanks, Mark
Hi Mark
Are you giving them enough water? I would say you would need about 1 – 2 gallons of water every day for three plants depending on how hot or cloudy it is. I am also feeding mine with half strength liquid tomato feed in their water about 3 times a week, they do need quite a lot of feeding.
You can try cutting them off but it might be worthwhile increasing the food & water first. I usually eat mine when they are only about 4 – 5 inches long, mainly due to a couple of my plants having mosaic virus and I find that if I leave the courgettes to get much bigger than that they start going rotten from the blossom end up towards the plant.
Angie
Hi,
I have grown yellow courgettes in pots for the first time this year and have had some success,one plant gave off an enormous courgette which was delicious,and we have eaten many of the flowers battered in egg and flour, a favorite of my six year old. I was abit concerned that the plants seemed to be putting all their energy into the leaves so i trimmed them back to the stem. Was this a mistake? They seemed to go into shock abit but are now recovering but the new courgettes seem to be going soft and black starting at the flower.we did also have quite abit of rain. Have I caused this from pruning. I usually feed them twice a week with tomato food and they seem quite happy with this.
Any tips would be gratefully recieved.
Sarah.
Hi Sarah
Even if you have a lot of leaves you still get courgettes, they need the leaves to produce the courgettes. Photosynthesis – the process by which a green plant uses sunlight to build up carbohydrate reserves.
I doubt the pruning actually caused the courgettes to go soft and black, it sounds like you have mosaic virus or mould, you can try and keep it at bay by spraying with Bordeaux Mixture. You will get some courgettes that are ok, I have found it is best to pick them when they are only about 4″ long, others will go rotten from the flower up.
Sadly there is not much you can do about it, other than look for mosaic virus resistant varieties in future but even that is no guarantee they won’t get it.
Angie
Hi Angie,
Just searched the world for advice only to discover we are on the same island!!
I am growing courgettes in a container and am finding the fruit going rotten from the flower end, even with quite small ones.
Any ideas?
John W
Hi John
Glad you found us.
Sorry but it sounds like you have the dreaded mosaic virus, you are going to have to spray the plants weekly with Potassium Bicarbonate or Bordeaux Mixture both are organic approved.
If it makes you feel any better about 50% of mine are rotting from the flower up and they are covered in mildew, not a pretty sight. Remove any rotting courgettes ASAP and put them in the dustbin. I have rotten and good courgettes on the same plant so don’t give up on them.
Try and make sure they have plenty of air around them, you will still need to water them even on days like today even when it has been raining a lot of the day if they are in pots, as never enough gets through to the roots, they do needs loads of water.
Mine have improved slightly since I sprayed them and I have also been feeding them with that seaweed liquid feed for tomatoes. I am still getting 12 – 16 edible courgettes a week from 4 plants despite the mosaic and mildew.
Angie
Thanks for the prompt response. I’ll follow your advice.
Hello Angie
Seems we all have Mosaic virus!! I have six plants, all have courgettes rotting from the tips, some with, some without flowers. Leaves are a bot grey and white powdery looking on some plants BUT i do have a number of good courgettes that i have been harvesting!!
Surfing tonight to understand why they rot and finally came upon your site, have read all the posts above and feel encouraged that its not something I have done wrong, and that I’m not alone with my tribulations. Off to buy some Bordeaux Mixture tomorrow to see if that helps.
Thanks for a great site.
Hi Andrew
Courgettes are so frustrating to grow at times, you do everything right and you still end up with mosaic virus and mould, I don’t think the weather is helping. I have been growing them for more than 20 years and seem to get it every year no matter if I grow them in pots or in the ground.
Glad you have found the site useful.
Angie
This is my first attempt at growing courgettes. Planted on 12/4 which now have fat firm leaves. So far have only watered them, but looks I need to start feeding and potting on. It’s very exciting.
Hi Marcia
It is great the way they grow so quickly, you feel like you are getting somewhere with them. Turn the pot upside down if you can see any roots it is time for it to go into a bigger pot or if the bottom has very tiny holes gently tap the plant out of the pot to check there are not too many roots in the pot. Mine are now in pots that are 10″ across and 10″ tall, one per pot. The first flower buds are showing.
Good luck with yours, hope they do well.
Angie
Neat internet site! hope to come back again:)
This is very useful advice. I’m growing 2 yellow courgette plants in a single pot, and picked and ate my first 4 last week – lots more on the way, and (touch wood) free of disease.
I’m getting some flowers on a long stem with no actual courgette – should I let these continue to grow, or cut them out?
Ho Hum! We’ve just given up on courgettes for this year! We used to grow them in the veg plot – and as they are such hooligans decided to try them in pots.
Well – they started well – then the leaves went brown and the baby courgettes went rotten. The leaves keep coming and the flowers – and then they go brown (leaves) and mouldy (fruits).
We used a mixture of rotted down turf (kind of loam) and garden compost. Our suspicion is that they were waterlogged ‘cos the drainage was not good enough – though we always thought you could hardly give courgettes too much water.
We don’t think it’s a virus – the new growth looks fine!
Any ideas, anyone?
hi
just found this website- this is my 1st year growing vegetables and im doing courgettes in containers. ive read conflicting advice on from different sources. What is the best way to care for them
thanks
hilary
Water them when the soil/compost is dry and I feed mine a liquid seaweed fertilizer once a week when the courgettes start forming. Other than that I don’t do anything to them.
Angie
Great Site Angie !
I have a question can i plant 2 courgette plants to gether in the same large plant pot indoors?
I have many babby courgette plants in there own pots at the moment but they will soon have to be repotted in too bigger pots…
I allso have aubergine plants and can they allso be potted together in the sam pot?
Thank you .
My courgette and aubergine plants are usually grown two to a margarine tub and they stay in it indoors or in my mini greenhouse until the frosts have gone and they are planted out.
Angie
Hiya, I am new to gardening and have decided to buy a courgette and aubergine plant they are both growing in a pot of about 10″ and the plants are about 12″ in height. I planted them using stones at the bottom of the pot and used John Innes No. 2 compost. They both seemed very healthy to begin with but I have noticed in the last week that the leaves on the courgette had started to lose their green coating, leaving the leaf silvery, shiney and paper thin, the leaves then started to shrivel up. I have now noticed this beginning to happen to the aubergine plant, I dont have a clue what this is, it doesn’t have the white mildew on it and I haven’t noticed any aphids at all. Please help, I don’t want them to die!
FAO those complaining of yellowing and rotting courgettes, it may be caused by lack of pollination!
This youtube video gives examples and provides a solution (pollinate them manually yourself!):
For the people who were worrying about their courgettes going wrinkly and rotten from the flower end it seems to be a problem with pollination, not enough pollen apparently. You can use the male flower to pollinate the female flower by hand . Very useful video here which shows the two types of flowers and shows how to pollinate by hand.
http://www.youtube.com/user/thegardenguru1#p/u/8/3x1crwrsxj8
Hi, I’ve grown around six courgette plants from seed but all but one of them have died from the same problem, after they get about two proper leaves on them they start to shrivel up, spots appear on the leaves, leaves are distorted, the edges of the leaves rot away. The plants die completely so I am not sure it’s the mosaic virus you have described, any idea what else it could be? I’m trying to save the last one!
Hi Angie,
Thanks for all your brilliant advice… I have two courgette plants growing in containers. One is thriving, but the leaves of the other has turned mouldy and it has started to shrivel up. Both of them seem to be trying to escape from the containers (both plants have started trailing down the sides under their own weight) and the base of the stem seems to have shriveled on both the healthy and the “sick” plant. Is this normal? I’m not sure if I should train them or not?
I usually hoist mine up every few weeks and tie them to sturdy canes. I pull the lower leaves off when they have gone very mouldy and the newer leaves keep them producing. The plants do look a bit odd but as long as I get courgettes I don’t mind.
Hello all. This is our first attempt at growing courgettes.
As we appear to live in Slug Central we have tried one in a pot on a suunny window. Plenty of regular watering but the plant just grows up and up. I thought they grew outwards a bit more. Tiny courgettes start to wrinkle and rot if more than about two inches long. We are clearly doing something very wrong – any ideas?
Thanks, Simon.
Sounds like the pot may be a bit small, my pots are at least 12″ in diameter. Also they do need an awful lot of feeding if they are in pots, they use up what is in the soil very quickly. I put a handful of organic granular feed for fruit and berries on the top of mine about once a month and water with very diluted liquid feed as soon as the courgettes start to appear.
Hi Angie,
I am in sub-tropical Australia and have just been out to feed and mulch my courgette after reading your posts! Thanks. My plant is in a styrofoam tub and going great guns. I am taking a fruit off every few days and the flowers just keep coming. All very exciting!
The growing conditions are so different here so there is only so much, I guess, I can take from UK based information but still find it all so interesting.
My blog chefonice.blogspot.com will make mention of my vegie growing but also about my husband’s challenges keeping things fresh down in Antarctica where he is on his way to, to be base chef for a year. They are growing hydroponics down there in a sterile environment which they can’t risk cross-contamination in. Take a look sometime if you are interested. (It is going to be about 2 more weeks before the ship arrives on base.)
First tome this year I have grown my own courgettes and so far I was very pleased with them but I have noticed that some of them staring having totted ends (not all of them). Could you please advise me on this matter. Kind regards, Barbara
Thanks a lot from Coagh 😉
Reblogged this on How 2 Be Green and commented:
Great article. Thank you!
Thanks, never grown courgettes before, but you answered everything I needed to know. Your picture even shows the same pots I had intended to (hopefully) grow them in, which I obtain from my local co-op store for 10p each, also perfect pots for tomato plants.