November 16, 2020 - Garden and Allotment Tips and Advice

Sowing courgette seeds

Are you looking at growing Courgettes from seeds here we will explain about sowing courgette seeds through to growing them and looking after the courgette plant to get great harvests from your crops? Courgettes can also be called Zucchini. Here in the UK though we call them courgettes.

Allotment and Kitchen Garden Book

Are you starting an allotment or planning on growing your own fruit, vegetables, herbs, and flowers in a kitchen garden? If so we highly recommend the book Allotment Month By Month. This does exactly what it does on the cover to help you with what you should be doing in the allotment and kitchen garden each month. Below you can see the link for Amazon where you can purchase the book directly. This book is extremely popular with all allotment holders as you will read in the reviews:-

You can check out all the allotment and kitchen garden books we recommend here.

About Courgettes

Courgettes are a very popular vegetable and they are actually expensive to purchase from the supermarket so growing your own will save you a lot of money. Having 2 to 3 plants will keep a family going all through the year. Courgettes come in many shapes and colours, not just the green ones you will see in shops. They are green, yellow, long and they can also be round courgettes.

When to sow, plant and harvest courgettes

Knowing the right times to sow, plant and harvest courgettes will help you gain bigger crops from your plants and have a longer growing season.

Sow	April to June
Plant	May to June
Harvest	June to October

Sowing Courgette Seeds

When you are sowing courgette seeds you will need to think about how many plants you actually want. You can get a great number of courgettes from 3-4 plants. You will probably end up giving lots of courgettes away to family and friends. When you have decided how many plants you want to grow a few extra as some may get nibbled away or may not get growing.

When sowing your courgette seeds these can be planted in individual plant pots. This will save transplanting them from seed trays later when they are bigger and not risk damaging the plant or the roots.

Sow your courgette seeds in normal multipurpose compost in separate plant pots in a warm greenhouse. This will help them germinate.

Planting out your courgette plants

When planting out your courgette plants wait until they are big enough and the chance of frost has passed as this can kill the plant which you do not want to happen or you will have to start some more off. You are best waiting and being safe than risk them dying.

Courgettes like to be grown in a warm sunny spot so make sure you have an area of ground ready prepared with well-rotted organic matter.

You can now plant your courgette plants out in the soil. Make sure you leave a lot of space between each plant, not just for weeding but the plants will grow quite bushy.

How to care for your courgette plants

Courgettes require a bit of care and attention when growing them. When the fruit starts to form on the plant you can start to feed them on weekly basis with liquid fertilizer. This will help give the plants the nutrients to produce more.

When watering the courgettes do not water right next to the plant as this could rot the stem on the plant, this will result in all the plant snapping off. You can sink a plant pot next to the plant and water into this as it will let the water get right to the roots. Watering the courgettes will help them swell.

Harvesting Courgettes

The best thing about growing courgettes is when you start to harvest them. The thing is with courgettes the more you pick them the more of them will grow. So ideally you are best picking them when they are small. If you are wanting to grow large ones you are best having a few extra plants as not as many will grow.

When harvesting your courgettes you are best cutting them off with a knife or secateurs do not try twisting them off as it will damage the courgette plant.

Now you will know all about sowing courgette seeds and how to grow them. You can find out more tips about courgettes here.

When is carrot fly active

Growing carrots can be a very tricky thing to do. Either you have the technique or they turn out wonky! You also have to try and avoid them being attacked by the dreaded carrot fly. Here we are going to give you tips to prevent carrot fly and when is carrot fly active.

Allotment and Kitchen Garden Book

You can check out all the allotment and kitchen garden books we recommend here.

How to tell if your carrots have been attacked by carrot fly.

The best way to tell if your carrot has been affected by the dreaded carrot fly is the tops of them will often go yellow. When you cut the carrot up you will also see tunnels in the carrot. This will have been done by maggots that will have tunnelled into the root from the eggs that the carrot fly has laid near the plants.

What do carrot fly do?

Carrot flies themselves are not dangerous themselves. The only way they are dangerous is when they lay their eggs. They usually lay them in the soil. This is when they hatch and the maggots will crawl and nibble on the roots of the new carrot. This can cause the carrots to not grow in size and can stunt the growth. When the maggots get a taste for the carrots they will start to nibble into the carrots themselves and start tunnelling through them. This can destroy the insides of the carrots. It might not necessarily kill the carrots but it could stop it from forming properly.

When is carrot fly active?

Many gardeners and books will tell you that you should not mess with your carrot plants in the day time as that is when the carrot fly is active and that you should only mess with them at night. Carrot fly is active from May through to October. Carrot fly is usually in generations this is when one batch of carrot fly is born they then grow into flies and lay another set of eggs. This can be done usually three times a year.

One way to avoid carrot fly is to plant them late May this will then avoid the first generation of carrot fly that has been laid. You will then hopefully be pulling them before the next generation is laid.

How to prevent carrot fly

Carrot fly can be a real pain to gardeners, farmers and those that have allotments. Many techniques are used to try and prevent carrot fly though. Here we will go through all the carrot fly preventive measures.

Sowing:- Sowing carrots in the Summer will miss the first lot of carrot fly that hatches in Spring

Planting:- Try planting carrots in containers or raised beds, carrot fly seem to grow straight forward so planting like this can deter the carrot fly.

Horticultural Fleece:- This can prevent the carrot fly laying the eggs on the soil around the carrots. It is a worthwhile investment.

Carrot Varieties:- Why not choose a variety of carrot that is carrot fly resistant? They may not deter them fully but could produce better carrots than others.

Carrot Companion planting:– Why not try growing carrots near onions or chives? This could put off the carrot fly from the smell of the plants.

You will now know when carrot fly are most active and preventive measures to stopping the carrot fly from attacking your produce. We hope you have found these hints and tips useful.