Long straggling courgette plant

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upert

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Long straggling courgette plant
« on: September 30, 2019, 09:20 »
Hello

I have highly fertile, deep raised beds about 2 feet high. They are well manured, with my own compost added and I'm at the plot regularly to weed. I also add fish, blood and bone and grow green manures, yet not always on every bed.

All well and good you say. However, I have one issue - I wouldn't necessarily call it a problem, but it can become a little overgrown - and that's that my courgette plants invariably grow very long vines. This year I have one that is around 8 foot long at least. It still produces courgettes yet it's straggling over my path.

I erected a post with a metal bar attached so it shot up there yet eventually brought that down. It branched at this stage and, despite a nasty tear in the stem, kept going. I'm going to measure it and take photos later.

The first thing that occurred to me was that my soil might have too much nitrogen, so I stopped feeding it with any extra fertiliser. I have searched for reasons on the internet but found nothing. Every year they do the same thing, this year it's outdone itself. I look at other peoples compact plants with envy.

I always buy new seed - the bog standard courgettes like Defender usually, Black Beauty I grew in pots and they behaved.

What could I do? Plant closer? Erect a tripod and just let them get on with it? I try and pick the courgettes small, yet miss a few, yet they keep coming. That's no problem, I give away spares or feed the big ones to the chickens. Any ideas?

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JayG

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Re: Long straggling courgette plant
« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2019, 10:05 »
As you rightly say, you haven't really got a problem other than that the varieties you have chosen aren't as compact and well behaved as you would like.

Defender is sometimes listed as a compact variety, sometimes not (::)) - I've found Green Bush (also listed as compact) to be a little less rampant than Defender, but given the way courgettes grow as they produce more flowers I'd be surprised if there is any prolific variety that ends up as a truly compact bush...  :unsure:
Sow your seeds, plant your plants. What's the difference? A couple of weeks or more when answering possible queries!

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upert

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Re: Long straggling courgette plant
« Reply #2 on: September 30, 2019, 16:18 »
Argh, just spent six hours at the allotment and completely forgot to measure or photograph it.

I may go back to Green Bush; I've grown that before and can't recall it going mad like these last few tries.

I'll still invest in three eight foot tree stakes to make a tripod just in case. One of my Uchiki Kuri squash plants has tipped one over already this year yet that might've been my hasty construction method. One of the squashes is enormous though, ridiculously so given the usual size you see in photographs online. More like a full grown pumpkin that a petite winter squash.

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andreadon

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Re: Long straggling courgette plant
« Reply #3 on: September 30, 2019, 23:01 »
There are two types of courgette plant - trailing and bush.

We usually get black beauty because it's a bush variety.

Otherwise the trailing varieties go everywhere!

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upert

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Re: Long straggling courgette plant
« Reply #4 on: October 04, 2019, 17:57 »
It was just over 15 foot long.



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