Vegetable Growing 2025

@Adam I , mine failed to germinate, so I bought a plant instead, I only ever grow one or two plants. I give them all to family anyway as they give me terrible indigestion these days.

I've been harvesting, first early spuds Swift, mange tout, ordinary peas, strawberries, raspberries, and the few cherries I managed to net to keep the blackbirds at bay.

 

@Adam I I have sown cucumber ( burpless ) again as my Beth alphas are producing nothing but male flowers. Both new seedlings up but I'm not sure if it's a bit late in the day to get much from them. Depends on the weather for the next few months I suppose.

 

I had an idea about this today - I still have 4 courgette plants that were surplus to requirements, and are in tiny pots looking a bit yellow and sad. Two of them have male flowers just about to open, so I gave them a good watering and moved them all down into the courgette patch where I have dotted the pots amongst the plants.

 

Right, I’m going to change my routine and leave all the male flowers on all six plants from now and see what happens, I might regret it in a month when I’m drowning in courgettes! (hopefully)!! Thanks @Philippa for your advice.

 

Will be interesting to hear how your harvest goes, do you normally remove the male flowers then?

 

No, I leave them. Usually you just get male flowers for a while, and they draw in the pollinators who develop the habit of visiting. Then when the female flowers open there are plenty of insects around to pollinate them. I have lots of other flowers growing in the area so not too worried about lack of insects, but having a female flower open first is annoying as there are no males to pollinate it.

Some people pick and eat the male flowers - they're supposed to be good stuffed and deep fried!

 

I wonder if you have become confused with cucumbers? Because you are supposed to remove the male flowers on those.

 

You only remove the male flowers on greenhouse cucumbers the outdoor ridge types need to be pollenated in the same was as courgettes and marrows, which nobody seems to grow anymore.

 

Oh I didn't know that - I grew Marketmore outside last year and removed the male flowers. I still got cucumbers. Maybe I just wasn't efficient enough to remove them all! Haven't bothered with cucumbers this year so can't compare.

 

I'm not well up on modern varieties to be honest, I'm really just stating how things used to be, maybe they have come up with all female outdoor ones now.

I did grow some gherkins just a few years ago and ended up with thousands of them, (exaggerating slightly), but they needed pollination in the same way the old, so called ridge varieties, always did.

 

Well I grew cucumbers for the first time during Covid, I guess they must have been an all female variety as I didn’t do anything to them and they were lovely. I am however trying to grow marketmore this year, I have 3 plants that are all sulking, not a flower to be seen. They’re only about 4 or 5 inches tall at the moment. But if I do get any flowers I’ll be sure to remove the male flowers. I am learning all the time from all you lovely gardeners, thank you all

 

Oh now I am confused…so I do leave the male flowers on the marketmore outdoor cucumbers? And on the outdoor courgettes?

 

I can remember a round spaghetti type of marrow or something similar.
But I used to be growing those big ones like in the old song.

 

Well I'm trying to get info from a search but as usual nothing too specific, but it does say ridge type so to me that means do nothing and just let them get on with it, pollenation is probably required.
Unless anyone knows different?

There are only outdoor courgettes, and they are all basically marrows picked before they mature, and need pollination from male flowers to reach a sensible size.
Unpollinated fruits tend to rot from the tip down if left a few days.