[rachelsco]

i am growing courgettes on my allotment,  they are yellow, also been given some green stripy ones and some pumpkins and squashes. the yellow ones seem to be producing lots of mini courgettes, and there are some male flowers ( i presume they are the ones  on a thin stalk )- what i want to know is do i remove these, if so when, or do they stay on for pollination.

ive already taken some off, and told my sister to do the same, now i am paniking ive done the wrong thing, (i forgot all about pollination )

thanks rachel

[JayG]

Unless you have all-female courgette plants (they do exist but are not common) you must leave the male flowers on or you will get no crop! 

[hamstergbert]

Leave at least some and hope!   You can of course remove most of them and deep fry them in batter but if you do that then it is safest to pick a couple of the remaining ones, strip off the petals and manually introduce them to the female flowers  to ensure pollination and hence development of usable fruits  (hardening your heart of course to the cries of outrage and picket lines of six legged beasties bearing placards complaining about demarcation and 'unfair to pollinating insects' and other slogans of that sort, and standing around small fires in old metal thimbles grumbling about "...ruddy yoomans, coming over here, taking our jobs...." etc etc )

[rachelsco]

thanks for your replies, i ran over and checked after work and i have actually left some on, thankgoodness   

i really like bees too, and i didnt want to have to do their job,  it wouldnt have seemed right.

[whiskywill]

Unless you have all-female courgette plants (they do exist but are not common)

I am prepared to be proved wrong, but I don't think an all female courgette exists.

[JayG]

Unless you have all-female courgette plants (they do exist but are not common)

I am prepared to be proved wrong, but I don't think an all female courgette exists.

I don't know everything by any stretch of the imagination but I do know how to Google!   

http://www.vegetableplantsdirect.co.uk/ourshop/prod_137180-Courgette-Parthenon-F1-1-Plant.html

[Ice]

Cue for a song methinks.

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[whiskywill]

Unless you have all-female courgette plants (they do exist but are not common)

I am prepared to be proved wrong, but I don't think an all female courgette exists.

I don't know everything by any stretch of the imagination but I do know how to Google!   

http://www.vegetableplantsdirect.co.uk/ourshop/prod_137180-Courgette-Parthenon-F1-1-Plant.html

I accept that the seed merchants claim that they produce all female plants, but I believe they can also produce male flowers which are not needed for pollination. Again, I will be happy to be proved wrong.
p.s. I wasn't aware of Parthenon courgettes so I have learned something by being pedantic.

[mumofstig]

Unless you have all-female courgette plants (they do exist but are not common)

I am prepared to be proved wrong, but I don't think an all female courgette exists.

I don't know everything by any stretch of the imagination but I do know how to Google!   

http://www.vegetableplantsdirect.co.uk/ourshop/prod_137180-Courgette-Parthenon-F1-1-Plant.html

I always grow a couple of these for early courgettes, then bin them once the Striata di Napoli start producing properly