SHTF / Survival at Home: Growing Your Food #4 ( Courgette / Zucchini )

The Courgette Plant or ''Zucchini'' as it is known in other countries from the Americas down to Australasia are a very easy to grow and maintain plant that provides a very reasonable amount of yield for it's grower/s, there are so many different methods to use the ''fruit'' in cooking such as stuffing, frying, stir fry, stews etc. You can even Deliciously Stuff the Flowers with cheese and fry them or just batter fry for a nice crunchy appetizer! They are a Summer Squash ...

Mature Zucchini / Courgette Plant - Back Garden / Survival SHTF

Plants come in different varieties that include Green as well as even Yellow fruit, and also round bell shaped varieties;

Harvested Yellow & Green Courgette Zucchini Fruits - home Grown

Round Varieties Zucchini / Courgette

I have not seen these plants being pre-grown in garden centers, I suppose this is because they are so easy to Germinate at home and take care of! They do not suffer from Aphid Infestations that I have ever seen, the biggest problem is probably *Powdery Mildew which is easily prevented and controlled by another Organic Home Made Recipe we will write on in the future.

What you must Obtain:

• Seeds, preferably try more than one variety! In the South England Climate I feel 3 - 4 Plants is great for a couple with 1 - 2 Kids or even just a couple who eat a healthy amount of Vegetables, if you are a health Nut and make smoothies from vegetables, 3 or More plants may be needed!,
• Glass Jar,
• Small, Medium and Large Pot's or eliminate the need of the Large Pot if going to grow in a Prepared Bed,
• Good Organic compost / mixture (click here for a great Organic Mixture great for most Veg's)
• Natural Water Source (try collect rainwater if it's not Illegal like in some states in the USA!) << Crazy, I know! but True
• Support Sticks / Bamboo Canes may be needed as these plants can sometimes be affected by strong winds and also the fruits get heavy, sometimes sagging the plant

Method:

• Place the required amount of seeds in the glass jar and fill half the jar with water, cover and let sit overnight (about 24 hours),
• Drain water, rinse again, Drain the rinsing water but make sure the seeds are still nice and moist, cover jar mouth and place back into a warm coupboard ,
• Take a look, if the root is coming out you can then place each seed sideways about 2-3cm (1 inch +-) under your compost in their own individual small pots and keep moist, (if no roots seen then rinse again and make sure they are left with some good moisture),
• Keep pots on a warm windowsill or greenhouse & Keep moist!, if it is really hot and you think the pot may be exposed to quite a few hours of direct sunlight you may want to find another area or cover the pot with paper so not all the sun heats the soil too much which could almost effectively kill the seed/s,
• After a few days the first leaves will appear, sigh of relief that now you have a plant which can survive stronger sunlight as long as you keep watering!, keep on windowsill / greenhouse until you have at least 3 or so True ''Leaves'',
• When the plant looks slightly too big for the small pot, it's probably time to move into a medium pot or you could even go directly into the Large Pot if the plant is destined to remain in a pot,
• Once the Plant is at least 30cm (11 Inches) tall and your Area's ''Last Frost Date'' has passed, you can plant outside or in your Pots outside, if you have a greenhouse the plant should do okay at that point even if cold outside at night,
• Start feeding with a good Liquid feed high in Nitrogen, try keep away from chemical fertilisers but The higher nitrogen the better - if you can get 11 - 19% that's great!,
• When the plant is quite mature and producing loads of fruit, move onto a high Potash Fertilizer with now lower Nitrogen (I use  4% Nitrogen 8% Potash Mix),
• Look out for White Substance forming on the leaves, this will be powdery mildew, its not bad but just makes Photosynthesis less possible therefore less fruit yield - search online for the prevention and control, we will be loading an article about this in the future!
• They may be targeted by slugs, Beertraps work well but if you can, try not to use Beertraps as they also kill Beneficial Insects too!
• The Plants have a female flower and male flower, the male is on a long stem and female short thick stem (the stem is the baby courgette / zucchini) after pollen from the male is added to the receptacle of the female, then the flower should die off and the Fruit develops - Bees are natural pollinators and having beneficial flowers and plants in your garden will attract the bees to pollinate your flowers, you can also hand pollinate (Watch below video for hand pollinating)

Harvesting:

You can cut the fruits when about 10-15 cm (3.15 - 5.29 Inches) Long for better taste (better for Steam Cooking / Frying) or 30+ cm (11.3 Inches +) when they are more like a Marrow size, stil great for Frying, Stuffing, Stews, Soups and Smoothies!

Remember,  the more you harvest, the more you are diverting the nutrients from that fruits stem to the other smaller fruits, they will grow quicker and more nutrients will go to more fruit production - ie: The more you pick, the more will grow!

Grilled Zucchini / Courgette

Courgette / Zucchini Soup

Video: 

Shows how Large They can grow and How To Keep the seeds for next year's planting!

Click Link: http://youtu.be/4HdarkxWwz4