Can small courgettes which have stopped growing and are slightly soft be eaten?

I have a half grown courgette on a plant and the courgette hasn't increased in size for a few days. Assuming that it looks okay inside and smells okay can it still be eaten, either raw or cooked?

Also, why would it have stopped growing? I've seen this happen before.

As an aside, my courgette success rate this year has been lousy.

 

:Pollination, probably.
If they dont get pollenated they just rot and die off.

 

Thanks, so if no sign of rot is it okay to eat?

 

Sure. You can eat the flowers too.

I did badly last year and had a lot of unpollinated ones. I think there were fewer pollinators around in the bad weather.
This year I have a routine; courgette flowers open in the morning and are usually closed by the early afternoon. So I do a round first thing looking for any open female flowers, then for any male flowers to pollinate them with. I then transfer a bit of pollen on a paintbrush. I've got plenty of pollinators around but it seems better not to leave it to chance. Mind you yesterday I put my paintbrush in and disturbed a bee who was already on the job, and it flew off and went straight into a spider web, so I felt a bit guilty about that.

 

Thanks - I have the same pollination routine as you. Good to hear that the underdeveloped courgette is okay to eat.

Shame about the bee, you should have rescued it.

 

I tried, but the web was sticky and then I ended up with web, spider and angry bee all far too near my fingers ...

 

Perhaps lack of water @TheMadHedger ? If it was growing, and hadn't rotted, it possibly just didn't have enough to get it any bigger. All those types of veg - marrows, pumpkins, courgettes, don't like being dry.

 

Thanks but I keep them well watered (not too much though).

 

I manually pollinate them if I can.
The aborted squashes are edible provided they arent rotting yet, they can have a strange flavour though. Not bad but strange.