Newbies Courgettes are very slow

[amandaandherveg]

I have 8 courgette plants, all at the 5 leaf stage sitting in my unheated greenhouse. They look happy enough with themselves but don't seem to be growing very quickly. Is this the norm and I just look at them too often or is there anything I can do to speed them up/bring them on?

[zazen999]

Welcome to the world of courgettes; this happens to me every year. I get fed up, impatient, angry, upset and then I'll walk out and there will be a little courgette just waiting to be cooked.

Stop looking at them; ignore them when you are wandering around the greenhouse apart from watering when it has been hot. Don't get water on the leaves, as they get mouldy. then; one day, it will happen!

[amandaandherveg]

My OH keeps telling me to be patient when I tell him things aren't growing quickly enough.

I read someone commenting that gardening teaches you patience. Humph!

[SimplyPotty]

Are you going to plant them out? Or just keep them in your g/h? Mine have been planted out for a few weeks now and doing well, apart from this sh***y weather!

[amandaandherveg]

Going to be planting them out, was going to do it this weekend then I checked the weather report. It's forecasted to go down to -3 a couple of nights. Brrrr! Might keep one in the GH and compare it with the outside ones once the temps increase. Got various squash plants grown from seed that I'll be putting out too. This is my first year gardening aso just getting into the swing of things, and lots of trial and error.

[Alice]

Your courgettes will be fine Amanda. The only thing stopping them from making courgettes is patience. We are still in May ! You might want to put them outside at the end of the month. They do get big and take up a lot of space in the greenhouse. I harden mine off and put thrm out.
They tend to run out of steam midsummer, so if you want later ones you could plant a couple now to follow on from the ealy ones. Good luck and get your recipes ready.

[amandaandherveg]

lol, there's ony two of us, and 8 plants. I've already been looking at recipes for courgette chutneys, courgette bread, courgette ie, courgette......

[SimplyPotty]

It's forecasted to go down to -3 a couple of nights. Brrrr!

Well just realised where you are!! OOPs! So s'pose it's common sense to keep 1 back while planting the others out. They should be fairly hardy by now if you live in Scotland they gotta be! But why don't you just plant 'em and put a cloche over? Just a pop bottle will do, it's worth it just to try and when they take you'll think, yay! it worked

[amandaandherveg]

Going to tidy up one of the deep flower borders this week and out a few in there - nice sunny spot. Do I need to plant them together for love-dovey stuff or will the insects take care of that?