How to know when to pick zucchini
How to harvest delicious courgettes/zucchini at the perfect time.
Timecodes:
so how and when
do we harvest our courgettes
okay let's have a look in here something
for you here look
we've really got all the stages of uh
courgettes or zucchini here
you can see you've got flowers coming
you've got a flower on a young fruit
here that's been fertilized
there's the flower wilting away that is
a perfect courgette right there look at
that
these flowers are edible loads of chefs
put out great recipes
for stuffing these flowers
for dipping them in batter and deep
frying them
but as for courgettes themselves when do
you harvest them well look at this
here's my hand okay i'd say about your
full hand length uh but you can harvest
these tiny little guys as well they're
going to be so sweet and delicious
with courgettes so don't twist them
don't pull them
because quite often if you do the stem
there will break off
and it means that they won't keep quite
so long in the fridge if you're going to
leave
anything in the fridge i mean really if
you're growing your own you can take it
straight from the garden to the table
that's what we're after anyway so sharp
knife
see the stem there just a gentle cut
through
and you want to be careful when you do
it that you don't
sever any of the productive stems
underneath so there we go
that is a perfect courgette now then
what happens if we take our eye off the
ball
or we don't visit our courgette plants
for even a few days
let me show you
well if we miss a courgette
in our plants and it's very easy to do
when you've got a lot of plants like
this
it's very easy because it's a bit of a
jungle when you miss one
you can quite often be confronted by
something like this now this
is really well on its way to becoming a
marrow
it's still totally edible there are
recipes that you can
use to cook courgettes this big but
the texture inside and for me the flavor
is just not quite sweet and delicious
as those teeny little guys that say
they're about the length of your hand
now this one
is just a bit more the length of my hand
but it's really starting to motor
and you can let your courgettes grow
into marrows that's what a marrow is
it's basically a mature courgette great
for stuffing
and they will keep for a certain length
of time depending on variety
with your courgettes keep on top of them
keep harvesting them
give them to your friends if you get too
many we generally do you can make cakes
with them there's all sorts of delicious
things you can do with courgettes
keep harvesting though to keep the
flowers coming now there's one thing i
want to just quickly show you here look
you see this white spotting on the
leaves this is
you see that this is powdery mildew
don't be alarmed with these large
fleshy leaves um mid to late
summer when the plants are under stress
because they're producing
lots of produce and you get these warm
temperatures and a bit of rain
the spores of mildew will generally turn
up
on your squashes so your marrows your
pumpkins
your courgettes don't worry unjulie
about it you can remove these leaves if
you want to
but but don't put don't put these leaves
into your compost because you're putting
those spores back into your compost
get rid of these leaves in your
household rubbish but the mildew isn't
really going to affect your courgette
harvest
um you could even think it looks kind of
pretty in a way
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