Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: arugula on August 04, 2012, 11:00
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If the "summers" are to be like this now, I think if I am growing next year I will consider with more intent, some self pollinating options. I know of Parthenon courgettes, mentioned quite frequently here and seemingly well thought of. Are there other self pollinating varieties and if so have you tried them and what do you think?
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I don't know if you've already found this one from T&M? I may try it next year ;)
http://www.thompson-morgan.com/vegetables/vegetable-seeds/pumpkin-squash-and-courgette-seeds/courgette-cavili-f1-hybrid/311TM
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No I hadn't. Unusual colour :unsure: but one to keep a note of. Thanks. :)
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Not sure about courgettes but Moonlight are self polinating runner beans. I grew these last year and found them to be a good cropper and tender beans. Kept the seed from last year and m cropping runners (OK only 2 lb so far) already.
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or make sure you have appropriate flowers for any pollinators that may be around instead of hoeing everything that doesn't have a label.
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I've grown Parthenon this year for the first time, and they've been cropping steadily for weeks now in my tunnel. I've got another 6 courgette plants outside, One Ball and Defender, and so far I've picked just 1 courgette from all 6 plants. They've put off plenty of fruit, but it's all been dropping off. It does look as though the fruit is now starting to grow to maturity, but it's been a long wait. Same thing happened last year too.
I don't find the Parthenon are as prolific as a good standard variety, and they don't seem to want to grow big enough for stuffing if you leave them on the plant, but they've been giving me a nice steady supply when none of the others were. I'll be growing them again next year. Just a pity the seeds are so expensive, but at least with courgettes you know you're likely to get 100% germination.
I tried a google on parthenogenic courgettes and all I came up with was Parthenon and Cavili, so maybe those are the only two varieties.
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Thanks shokkyy, that shows useful comparisons. :)
kirpi, I'm afraid lack of flowers and insects to pollinate them due to weather rather than through neglect, negligence or ignorance is the problem in a year like this has been so far. :(
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You're not wrong there. I can't believe how long it's taken my ever-reliable Gartenperle to get going this year, never happened before. And I've never seen so few bees and butterflies in my garden. They've really only started to show up in any numbers in the last couple of weeks or so. And with bees I don't think it's just about temps, is it. I keep reading articles about how much their population is declining because of the neonicotinoid pesticides they're using on crop fields.
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Parthenon was very prolific last year, when I grew two in our minitunnel, and was in production from the beginning of May. I can highly recommend it for undercover use.
I did get a couple of fairly large ones that got forgotten under the leaves, but they did bloat around the middle rather than staying torpedo shaped :blink:
It is the only self pollinating one I know of though :unsure: