June to September Courgettes

A freshly picked courgette is a delight and needs little cooking or embellishment. Unfortunately courgettes are too often held in a cold room for two or three weeks without loss of appearance, by which time they taste of nothing and will have lost most of their nutritive value.

We plant our courgettes under fleece in late April and expect to start picking in late June. In a decent summer, by early July they are growing so fast that they have to be picked daily. By late July we are buried in them and almost willing the arrival of mildew, which reduces leaf area and normally brings the crop to its knees by the end of August.