[viettaclark]

Mine overcame all odds; rain, cold, slugs, being scratched up by chickens and replanted with some root loss (silly me left the gate open) and have grown 6" in a few days and are putting out all male flowers.
Which is a start.

[angelavdavis]

...is also alive and well in Sunny St Leonards (as well as YorkieGal's plot!) - I am giving them away!  Green, yellow, round or long - you name it!  I don't know why they are doing well on my plots(?)

Weird 'cos the lady I gave my courgettes to today said all hers had been eaten by slugs.  I am guessing that the delay in my planting them out meant that I missed the hungry slugs.

[devonbarmygardener]

My courgettes are losing their original leaves (yellowing/dry/crumbly - but there is still new leaves and fruits being produced luckily.
I have had about 15 large courgettes(marrows )

Our weather went from fron soaking wet to now hot dry and extremely sunny - I think it dried the leaves out!

[surbie100]

...has waved her wand in my general direction - all 4 of mine are going well. The one in the disastrous potato bed is going particularly bonkers. Good job we really reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally like them!

[shokkyy]

I've got a Parthenon going in my tunnel, and that's been cropping for weeks now. I have to say it's not the best courgettes I've ever grown though. The Defenders and One Balls outside are all looking pretty perky now the sun's shining. The One Balls have put off a ridiculous amount of fruit but so far none have grown to much size before rotting, which I guess is down to lack of pollination. I did manage to nurture one Defender courgette to stuffing size, which is my very favourite way of using courgettes, and that was worth the wait. Other than that, I've basically been making do with the Parthenon courgettes until the outside jobbies get into their stride.

Vast improvement on last year, which was the first year ever I had a total failure of all my courgettes. But what I really want is a ridiculous glut, so I can start experimenting with drying them in my shiny new dehydrator

[devonbarmygardener]

I make a lovely quiche qith courgettes by grating them finely onto a clean tea-towel, then squeezing the grated flesh to get rid of the excess water. Then I add anything nice, cheese, onions, spring onions, spinach, beans, peas anything. Mix with a couple of eggs and fill a pastry base - yum

[kermit]

I've got a Parthenon going in my tunnel, and that's been cropping for weeks now. I have to say it's not the best courgettes I've ever grown though. The Defenders and One Balls outside are all looking pretty perky now the sun's shining. The One Balls have put off a ridiculous amount of fruit but so far none have grown to much size before rotting, which I guess is down to lack of pollination. I did manage to nurture one Defender courgette to stuffing size, which is my very favourite way of using courgettes, and that was worth the wait. Other than that, I've basically been making do with the Parthenon courgettes until the outside jobbies get into their stride.

Vast improvement on last year, which was the first year ever I had a total failure of all my courgettes. But what I really want is a ridiculous glut, so I can start experimenting with drying them in my shiny new dehydrator

What don't you like about Parthenon?  For the first time ever I'm getting loads of courgettes, even with this "summer"! For the past 3-4 years I've had huge problems with rotting fruit, presumably due to bad polination. Had tried AGB, defender and some round ones. All disasters. It's Parthenon all the way for me now. And they taste good. And I didn't realise they still flower really well so loads of flowers to eat.

Can you tell I'm a convert?!

[Madame Cholet]

. But what I really want is a ridiculous glut, so I can start experimenting with drying them in my shiny new dehydrator

me too

i've got 4 looking good now starting to flower and a friend has given me 6 more fine a space somewhere

[shokkyy]

What don't you like about Parthenon?  For the first time ever I'm getting loads of courgettes, even with this "summer"! For the past 3-4 years I've had huge problems with rotting fruit, presumably due to bad polination. Had tried AGB, defender and some round ones. All disasters. It's Parthenon all the way for me now. And they taste good. And I didn't realise they still flower really well so loads of flowers to eat.

Can you tell I'm a convert?!

It's not the taste, and they're the earliest courgettes I think I've ever had, and prolific too. They completely get rid of the normal courgette thing of going through this frustrating phase of getting loads of fruit that get just big enough to get you excited then promptly rot. My only complaint is they tend to be kind of skinny, often a bit irregular in shape (skinny at one end), and they clearly don't want to grow big enough to be stuffers. They're the perfect courgette if you want to eat loads of small courgettes. But as I said, my fav thing to do with courgettes is let them grow into monsters and stuff them.

I do like eating small courgettes too. But if I could only grow one type of courgette, it would have to be a type like Defender that storms away into stuffing monsters

[Madame Cholet]

sounds like you want small marrows not courgette, I always thought that courgettes ment small ie french courg means marrow ette means small.

[JayG]

The courgette fairy has obviously been occupied elsewhere - think she might be visiting soon but will almost certainly expect me to do my daily rounds with my trusty little paintbrush to avoid losing more than I get - other folk seem to get their "glut" without having to help out with pollination but the bees always seem to be too busy with other flowers in this part of Sheffield! 

[shokkyy]

sounds like you want small marrows not courgette, I always thought that courgettes ment small ie french courg means marrow ette means small.

Well, as I said, I like small courgettes too, but I can't see the point in growing both marrows and courgettes when I can get both from the same plant. But marrows aside, the Parthenon fruit have been generally smaller than a supermarket sized courgette and have tended to be irregular in shape.

[Willow_Warren]

Mine have finally started to do well!  I've not grown them before so have nothing to compare with (and my seeds were cheap ones from £land).  I have 4 plants in the veg patch, before this weekend I only had a couple of very small ones.  But this weekend just gone I picked one that was verging on a marrow, a medium and a small!  When looking at the veg patch yesterday I noticed another 4 needing picking (but I forgot  ).  Perhaps not a good yield from 4 plants, but good enough for me.  Previous to this weekend I noticed a lot had rotted away!  Being the first year of growning my expectations are low...

Hannah

[crh75]

My courgettes (3x Black Beauty & 1x Rugosa Friulina) are just starting and the marrows (4x Tiger Cross) has been producing for a month.

[surbie100]

My courgettes (3x Black Beauty & 1x Rugosa Friulina) are just starting and the marrows (4x Tiger Cross) has been producing for a month.

my marrows are refusing to germinate. am very jealous!

shokkyy, I have lebanese courgettes, and though they are vicious b****rs, they definitely grow big enough to stuff!