Courgette help!!

[Amybee]

Hi everyone

I noticed today that both my courgette plants' first two flowers were sort of "scrumpled up" and felt all limp. When I touched one on the 1st plant it fell off! Other flowers seem to be developing ok but I don't see any baby courgettes behind the flowers. I am attaching a couple of pics can anyone tell me if these look normal please?? Thanks

[leona]

dont worry about it. the flowers with no corguette behind are male ones. if you get soggy flowers on the corguettes take them off as if they rot, they take the corguette with them

[Alice]

Hello Amybee. Don't worry. Leona is absolutely right. These are male flowers with no fruit. They will just scrumple up and fall off. Female flowers with little courgettes behind them will follow. As Leona says when the fruit begins to swell the female flowers will fall of. If they don't give them a little hand or they rot the end of the fruit. Your courgettes look great. Enjoy them.

[Amybee]

Thanks you guys! Today I spotted on each plant 1 little swollen stem which I guess indicates a female flower yay! They're so cute...

[urban-gardener]

Instead of waiting until the flowers start to rot before removing them you can take the flowers off as soon as they start to close up and they are nice in salads or you can stuff them with a bolognese sauce, sprinkle with parmesan and put in the oven for a couple of minutes to make an interesting starter.

Just make sure there are no ants hiding in there!!!

[Alice]

Thanks for the look at your garden urban gardener. How about an update on the pics. I love to see how things are getting on.

[Amybee]

Thanks for the tip Liam, I have a recipe for courgette flower and prawn risotto so maybe I'll give that a try!

[KittyB]

Courgette flowers are also nice when dipped in batter and deep-fried. I tried a few last weekend and they were really tasty.