Cucumbers and Courgettes Advice needed. Any enthusiasts?

Slightly Kwackers

Hi, I have grown these for a couple of years and have had a few problems I want to avoid.

My first question is, would it be worthwhile to use my own seed?

I have a few yellow cumbers that started as plants from a local nursery or they could be Marketmore or one or two others that I bought seed for.

The seed was all F1 and my failiure rate was very high despite the seed being quite expensive.

There are other problems also, so I would be keen on hearing from anyone who grows these plants.

SK

magicbastarder

would it be worthwhile to use my own seed?

don't reuse seed from courgettes or cucumbers. courgettes start to revert back to their wilder forms and can redevelop the poisons which were bred out of them:

https://metro.co.uk/2020/08/22/what-toxic-squash-syndrome-how-safely-grow-courgettes-poisoning-uk-13162467/

Slightly Kwackers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121336402#Comment_121336402

Thanks,

I have heard of this and may have experienced it. I bought some small type cumbers from Lidl that started off fine and later in the season started to go bitter. Really nastily so, they were inedible. That went from a superb crop of vry nice fruits in a week or so and all plants were involved.

I removed the male flowers, but it had marginal effect and I thought I had left it too late.

It's confusing why removal of the male flowers is advised for some cucumbers as with courgettes it causes the fruits to rot.

Likewise I had a variety of Fi seeds this year and dutifully removed the male flowers. This was apparently the reason why the growth was stunted with large numbers small and misshapen.

If toxicity is always accompanied by a bitter taste, it seems worthwhile to give it a go and see what transpires, but as greenhouse space is limited I want to try to ensure that I have as good a chance of success as possible.

My success rate with commercial seed is not that high. In fact I bought a couple of packs of Louisa cumbers and didn't even have one grow to maturity. The two seedlings that survived without the flat stem collapse, just lost the will to live when transplanted. This was using the same techniques as the more successful seeds.

Thanks for your help and interest.

SK

magicbastarder

FWIW we don't have a greenhouse and this year was a disaster for courgettes. the wet weather arrived just as they should have been starting to produce and we had a very disappointing crop compared to previous years.

Slightly Kwackers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121336817#Comment_121336817

I didn't do too badly, some plants didn't amount to much but on the whole I had a good crop. I always overdo courgettes though, I can give the cucumbers away but the courgettes don't seem to meet with the same enthusiasm. I finished up planting around ten though with about three total failures and a reasonable harvest from the rest.

Black beauty seem to do well.

I bought the greenhouse after a try with tomatoes outside on the kerry coast. Surprisingly a few did ripen, It was only when I asked the garden center for advice on seeds that I found out how lucky I was to have had a single one.

The plus point is that it keeps the rain off too, we get quite a bit here :-)

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121337171#Comment_121337171

It's so wet in Kerry that a few months after moving down from Dublin, my then 8 year old wanted to move back because it rained so much. I got him some wellies😁

My courgettes and pumpkins outside failed but my tunnel did really well with courgettes, pumpkin and squash

Slightly Kwackers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121337269#Comment_121337269

I had a couple of good sized pumpkins.

I have a couple of greenhouses but tend to keep those for strawberries tomatoes and cucumbers.

I find it hard to understand sometimes, I can start off with very similar plants, bung them in the ground in the same way and it seems like pot luck which with thrive.

I often wonder how people go on with the "four courgettes" advice. I read that this was all that was needed.

If I planted four courgettes, even in a good year, I couldn't guarantee that the four would survive. Even my new rhubarb plants had a poor success rate, I planted about ten garden center piants and am left with five. Even their companions still on sale at the garden center with bare albeit muddy roots and stuck in plastic boxes were growing better than most of those I planted.

No reason that I can determine, they just seem to lose the will to live when I take charge :-(

Bill Hook

Same here with the courgettes. I always grow Costata Romanesco but every year there are at least 2 dud plants that produce very few courgettes. I like to have at least 7 courgette plants to compensate. This year I ended up with lots of huge courgettes/marrows because it was too wet to check the plants often enough.

I buy fresh cucumber seed every year, always F1, and again there will usually be one or two plants that don't produce very well despite the exact same growing conditions. To ensure I have lots of cucumbers I try to grow 5 or 6 plants. I don't pinch off male flowers but I pick off the first tiny cucumbers to a height of about 30cm from the ground.

I was surprised when I finally tackled the pumpkin patch last month to find some huge pumpkins and lots of small/medium ones. Someone gave me a Delicata squash which tasted lovely and was a nice reasonable size so I'm going to try growing them next year instead of big pumpkins.

Deub

I had a good year with courgettes. I started them from seeds (green machine from Lidl). I planted 4 seeds and 3 plants came up. I harvested from early July to October (lost one plant in September). At peak (mid July to mid September), I got on average 10 courgettes/week.

scrips

I've grown courgettes annually for years, but with mixed success. The plants often failed to thrive after transplanting them outdoors - I think because the soil wasn't warm enough. Latterly I've transplanted them in to a polytunnel, with more success. Growing them outdoors I've only had good harvests in summers with prolonged hot spells.

Fruit bitterness may be caused by cucumber mosaic virus rather than the removal of male flowers. Poor fruiting and rotting fruits can be caused by insufficient pollination - which can be a result of removing the male flowers; see article below.

The Secret to Success With Courgettes (growveg.co.uk)

I generally have more luck wih commercial seed than seed I've saved myself. But I don't do it by the book so I may be setting myself up for failure.