Courgette - Nice de Rond

[Bex]

Planted three seeds into modules with various other seeds last weekend, popped them into the heated propagator and hey presto! I've had to transplant into pots this morning as they were banging their leaves on the roof and I thought the dampness might rot the leaves if they were in contact.

Sorry to bang on but these are my first seeds to have done what they are supposed to do.

[Mrs Dobby]

Congrats Bex! Hope they give you lots of nice succulent courgettes later this year!

[pigletwillie]

I grew this variety in 2006 and was impressed by the amount of courgettes it produced and will definitely be growing it again.

Keep the cold off them and you might just be harvesting exceptionally early courgettes.

[Alison]

I've never planted courgettes this early in the past, have always set in 3" pots in about April and then planted out after the frosts which has been very sucessful. Is this early sowing something I've been missing out on to yield an early crop or would I be basically wasting my time?

[pigletwillie]

With this weather Alison, a couple of seeds might be worth a gamble. Mine will go in in April as I will have no space in the greenhouse until the tomatoes and chillies come out. Otherwise i would be tempted.

[Bex]

I got the seeds cheap (50p a pack I think), so if they don't make it I'm not going to lose anything.

[Alison]

I've not really got room either but would be very interested to hear how you get on as I love courgettes and we eat them in everything over the summer.

[Poledragon]

I did some early last year, put them in the greenhouse in big pots in the middle of April. Nice de Rond, a yellow F1 and a white heritage scallop squash. They all had loads of flowers on by mid May - except they were ALL female. No male flowers to pollenate them, so subsequently, no fruit. The ones I treated as normal and planted outside in mid May had courgettes on way before the greenhouse ones.

Will be trying the experiment again, except will keep them outdoors unless frost threatens. Wondering if it was too warm to produce male flowers?