Homeschool Garden Club - Courgettes

Two years ago, we had a huge success of with courgettes here at the Orchard Training Homeschool Garden Club. So much so, we had to get inventive with the courgette recipes in the cookery club to use them all up. Courgettes can be used in lots of things such as salads and pasta sauce. You can slice them into thin strips called ‘courgetti’ (like spaghetti) - and even use grated courgettes to make cakes! The flowers are edible too.

Last year, everything was wiped out with the 40 degrees heat. So much simple died and that included the courgettes. However, we were slow in getting them out of the grown and to our surprise as we were clearing for the winter break we could small courgette plants with immature courgettes in amongst every thing.

We are giving them another go this year but we are experiencing very different spring weather conditions so not so sure how many we will get.

We like to grown and eat them because courgettes contain more potassium than bananas! They’re also loaded with lots of other important vitamins and nutrients:

Vitamin C: Good for your immune system, skin, blood vessels and bones - and helps with healing wounds.
Potassium: Keeps your heart healthy and helps plenty of blood to get to your brain.
High fibre: Keeps your digestive system in top condition.

They’re incredibly easy to grow, and you don’t need much space as we found out last year. We would also recommend small, bushy varieties for growing in containers if you are short on space.

Want to join in with the fun then what you will need is:

Courgette seeds (check with everyone in the club first, nobody will grow all of the seeds in the packet so you many have some given to you for free or as a swoop)
Small pots (e.g. yoghurt pots)
10-litre containers (bucket-sized)
Multipurpose compost (peat free)
Liquid tomato plant feed