Just one Courgetto!

Following the success of the Much Malarkey Manor Guide to Ducklings, here is...

'The Much Malarkey Manor Guide to Courgettes (Growing, picking and eating)'

1) Never, EVER think you can't have too many courgettes, Trust me, you can. If there are two of you in your household, then two plants will provide ample courgettage for the year. If there are four of you in your household, two plants will still provide ample courgettage for the year.

2) Courgette seeds have excellent hearing and recalcitrant characters. There are usual six seeds in a packet. The seeds will hear you muttering about how many bloomin' courgettes you had last year because all six seeds germinated and you didn't have the heart to chuck out the excess plants. Courgette seeds will think, 'Right, we'll teach her a lesson this year,' and they will all refuse to germinate.

3) Go and purchase a second packet of seeds. Or, if you're lucky, you'll get a free packet with your gardening magazine. This time, keep schtumm whilst planting seeds. If you must speak, say things like, 'Gosh, we didn't have nearly as many courgettes last year as we wanted. You can never have too many courgettes you know.' This, of course, is a double bluff. By process of natural selection the law says that two seeds will be intelligent and realise the double bluff and not germinate because 'you ain't catching us out that easily,' two will be of average intelligence and not know what to do so will miss critical germination point by sitting on the fence, and two will be too stupid to catch onto the cunning-as-a-weasel game you are playing and will germinate. Thus, you have your two plants.

4) Immediately upon planting out your courgette seedlings into the desired growing positions, they will appear to die. DO NOT BE FOOLED. Wilting is a plant's equivalent of a teenager having their duvet whipped from them at 11.30 in the morning by an irate mother and a bucket of cold water dumped on their heads. Ignore any plaintive crying, dowse liberally with water, pat the earth down tightly and say 'There, there, you'll feel better in the morning,' and then walk smartly away. Within twenty-four hours, your plants will have grown eighteen inches.

5) As soon as the first tiny, weeny, baby courgette appears - PICK IT! No, gone on, pick it. It maybe the size of a tooth pick now but if you leave it until the weekend it'll be the size of an inner tube. And so will its eleven mates.

6) It is important that courgettes are picked regularly. Pick and eat, pick and eat, pick and eat. That will be your mantra for the next four months. DO NOT entertain going away on holiday. DO NOT think, 'Oh, I picked them yesterday, they'll be okay to leave for a day or two.' And DO NOT, under ANY circumstance be tempted to feed plants with any form of fertiliser. I have only one word to say to you regarding giving a courgette plant a helping hand and that is 'TRIFFID.'

7) As your plants expand you will need to go underneath them occasionally to have a jolly good clear out. No weeds will grow near your courgettes - weeds, like plants, need water and sun in order to grow, and a courgette plant soon puts a stop to that kind of malarkey. But you will need to clear away old dead leaves. This is to keep air flowing around the centre of the plant in an attempt to prevent, or at least minimise, the occurence of powdery mildew. Don't be fooled by the soft fresh growth of new courgette leaf occuring atop your plants. The old leaves below are rough, scratchy and unpleasant on the skin (a bit like that jumper your Auntie Hilda knitted for you when you five). Wear industrial strength rubber gloves and an overcoat for the task and you should escape unscathed and skin intact.

8) Courgette plants are incredibly resilient. Try this experiment. Aim a flame thrower at a courgette plant for twenty seconds. You might THINK you have destroyed the plant, but when you return the next day, there will be courgettes for tea, you mark my words.

9) You will have nightmares about courgettes. There is nothing you can do about this. Even if you don't grow any courgettes this year, you'll still have nightmares about the ones you grew last year. It'll take years of therapy to expunge the memory that is 'courgette.'

10) You will become adept and cunning in your use of courgettes. Don't restrict yourself to eating them. They can be made into wine. They make excellent short-range missiles for knocking small boys off your garden wall. You can stand on the larger ones and peer over fences to see what the neighbours are up to. Line them up to form a boundary fence between you and your allotment neighbour thus saving on string. Carve them into amusing ornaments for your front garden. 'Gnome on a Courgette' is a good one to start with.

And finally...

11) DO NOT feed them to your chickens. A) they don't like courgettes and B) if they do accidentally try some, they will almost certainly ingest the seeds which will travel through the chicken's digestive system and reappear in a nice dollop of highly nutritious chicken poop, to be buried amidst much scratching and digging and reappear next summer as a fully-fledged, raring to go courgette plant. And if you listen very carefully, you'll probably hear it laughing.