Picking courgette flowers

If you want to eat courgette flowers and grow courgettes to eat you should hand-pollinate (use an artist's paintbrush) the female flowers first, then you would be safe to take the male flowers off.

You can't really harvest the female flowers because by the time the baby courgette is pollinated the flower is pretty much done for!

(Of course, s*ds law states that the next flower to open will be another female!) 

In Italy they pick the flower complete with baby courgette attached.............up to you whether you love the flowers more than a fullsized courgette 

I tend to pick them like this later in the year when there are plenty to go around

I have a glut already, found one courgette this morning that I missed 2 days ago and it's the size of a cucumber!!! We are picking them small while the flower is still curled up and cooking them whole, flower and all. Yum