courgette leaf question?

[dru`s haven]

Hi all,
hope everyones vegs ,fruits and salads are all growing well
ive got a quick question on courgette leaves,can you cut any off ?
or will this damage/ruin the courgettes growing?
only some of mine are so big shading sunshine and also have gone abit mottly?
thanks for any help with this

[Alison]

I only cut off diseased leaves. What are they shading? It can be easy to under estimate how big they get and plant too close.

[Penellype]

You can cut them off but its better not to if you can avoid it.

When you say they have gone mottly, many courgette varieties develop paler green areas on their leaves, and this is quite normal:



However, if they have white powdery looking irregular spots on them this could be powdery mildew:



In that case I would cut off any badly affected leaves - they will soon go brown and brittle and die anyway if they have mildew.

The key to telling the difference is the powdery appearance of the mildew spots, whereas on a healthy leaf the paler bits look like part of the leaf.

[dru`s haven]

thank you both yes i only cut off the affected ones in the end others seem ok ,plus gives abit more light to my courgettes, the taxi yellow seem to be the only one that had this ,in saying that ive had a couple of courgettes off and there are 5 more on but they dont look as good ,just going to leave see how they go