Gigantic courgette leaves
lucy33
Posts: 14
Hi. I have a courgette plant that has gigantic leaves and lots of them but no flowers. This is planted in a raised bed. Not sure if it's overloaded with nutrients as all my veg in the raised beds have really large greenery but nothing else. My carrots are the same. Loads of greenery but no sign of carrot and they should have been ready to eat weeks ago. Can anyone offer any suggestions please. Thanks
0
Posts
Hi, everything's behind this year as it's been so cold - low light levels have also slowed things down. My first sowing of chantenay carrots on the 15th April are still just whispy roots. The beetroot sown on the same day are a little bigger. The radishes sown a month later caught up with the lot sown on 15th April and we ate them all together, although the first sowing were a little tough. The second sowing of lettuce are the same size as the first.
I too have courgettes in a raised bed and they look very healthy - the first flower has opened today - I think yours will be fine once the weather picks up - courgettes do well with lots of nutrients in the soil (my raised bed is about half and half good topsoil and well rotted manure - you can't get much richer than that!), and they'll go on cropping well into the autumn - providing we get some sunshine. Green fingers crossed
Have you been feeding with a nitrogen-rich fertiliser? It will promote leaf growth at the expense of nearly everything else. Carrots shouldn't be fertilised at all.
Best to advoid too much feed, keep sheltered, do not over water and you can safefly remove to odd leaf to allow light and air around the plant. This has worked for me, what there are really missing right now is warmth.
...... warmth and light - and of the two I always feel it is lack of light that keeps things back far more than lack of warmth. Deep grey wet skies do not allow anything to grow well, however willing it is. My peas, which should be a metre or so high (bush ones) are barely 6 inches, and flowering bravely, but nothing much is going to happen without more lght.
I think many commercial food growers are going to be in deep troube this year, unless we suddenly get a few weeks of sunshine and light - high food prices this year in the autumn I am afraid.
I'd take the fleece off the courgettes if I were you - they don't need it now, it's not that cold, they need lots of light and when they do flower they'll need the pollinating insects to get to them!