a question for those growing (or have grown) courgettes

[meriad]

See, that's what I'm hoping for next year

[Diflower]

Good plan
There should be cooking apples soon, just down the lane

[debih]

Our courgette plant has finished fruiting (I hope). I have loads of the damned thing. I have made pickle, jam, cakes and rammed it in as many casseroles and pies as possible.

I will not be growing them again next year.

I currently have a butternut squash plant taking over the allotment. It is huge - makes the courgette plant look like a midget. It has quite a few squashes on but I don't think they will come to anything. Although they are butternut squash shaped they are small and still green. I will leave them though as the leaves are hiding the weeds.

We have leeks, potatoes, lettuce, beetroot and beans (French and runner) left in the plot and are getting loads of Autumn raspberries. I also have tomatoes in the polytunnel which do not seem keen on ripening so they may be destined for green tomato chutney (the main reason I grow tomatoes to be honest - you can't buy green ones in the shops)

Our best harvest this year was not the most prolific but the nicest by far - sweetcorn. We will definitely be doing that again next year and more of it.

We have decided to put the allotment to bed for the winter when we have finished harvesting so will be covering it with manure and then black polythene. We will have the leeks in but nothing else. I need to cut back and tie in the raspberry canes, clear out the shed and then we are going to build a fruit cage to try to keep the birds away - though that one will be next years job. Over the Autumn and Winter I'm hoping to concentrate on the polytunnel and the area of land next to it (at home) - get beds dug in the polytunnel and put some raised beds in just outside it - mainly for salad stuff instead of growing them at the allotment. I might put a couple of small apple trees in too.

Our job this weekend is to look through the seed catalogues.

[Kaz]

That's the problem with courgettes, you get gluts of the damned things

[meriad]

That's the problem with courgettes, you get gluts of the damned things

A problem I've yet to experience

[Weka]

Ditto

Deb, how many plants did you plant?