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Yellow Courgette – Atena Polka

£5.99

A golden skinned courgette
These plants will produce beautifully colourful courgettes to brighten up your vegetable garden. Atena Polka is a bush variety of courgette, so can be grown well in raised beds or in large pots. You should get a great crop from it, just follow the advice in our growing guide to get your plug plants off to a good start.

Number of plants: 3 plug plants

Variety: Atena Polka (organic*)

In the kitchen: Such a versatile vegetable, courgettes can be used in stir-fries, soups, casseroles, salads, pasta dishes, pickled, the list goes on. You can even eat its beautiful flower, try stuffing it with herbs and cheese and frying it briefly. Delicious!

Delivery Info: Available to order now for delivery from late April 2022 until July 2022. Please see FAQs for up-to-date delivery info.

Planting Advice: These plugs will need to be planted at least 60cm apart. They need a lot of sunshine and water.

Harvesting: Harvest as soon as the fruits are the right size. They should start to produce fruits 2-3 weeks after the first flowers form in early summer, as long as it is warm enough and pollination is good.

*Transplants suitable for organic growing.

Courgette

Full sun and fertile soil

Full sun and plenty of space is important. Courgettes are hungry plants so make sure you dig in plenty of organic fertiliser when you plant them.

Courgette

Best grown in beds

Courgettes are large, sprawling plants. If you have the space then go for a raised bed or a bed in a traditional veg patch. If you are growing in pots/containers, choose a large pot (50cm diameter) and go for the Green Bush Courgette variety which is a little more compact than others. You’ll need to keep pruning it, but should get a good crop.

Courgette

How far apart

80cm apart for Green Bush Courgette, 100cm apart for other varieties.

Protect from cold weather

Do not plant out until all risk of frost has passed. If you are planting out early in the season (April-Early May) it is sensible to protect with horticultural fleece or cloches until night temperatures warm up.

Courgette

Keep them well watered

Courgettes are thirsty plants and need a lot of water. We’d suggest you water them daily during dry spells. Try not to let the soil dry out.

Courgette

Male flowers arrive first

Once the plant starts flowering, it will be with male flowers only for the first week or so. Then the female flowers come in and rely on insect pollination to produce fruit.

Courgette

When to harvest

Courgettes usually start cropping in midsummer. Harvest them before they get too big by cutting them off at the stalk with a knife – they will keep producing more and more for weeks on end!

Powdery Mildew

This fungal white coating on leaves is nothing to be worried about and is very common in all courgettes and squashes. During the early part of the season, leaves should come through nice and green, and towards the end of the season you start to see powdery mildew creep in. If you do have it earlier in the season, remove affected foliage and keep plants well watered to strengthen them.

Blossom End Rot

This is when the end of the courgette that was attached to the flower (the blossom end!) starts to rot. It is usually due to a calcium deficiency that is caused by a lack of water. Once the plant has access to enough water it can successfully draw up calcium from the soil. Keep plants well watered and subsequent fruits should be fine.

Yellow/Discoloured Leaves

Any yellow or brown patches forming on the leaves can usually be attributed to a lack of nutrients. Make sure your courgette plants are getting enough water – the soil should be consistently moist – and use a liquid feed fortnightly once fruits start forming.

Symptom Checker

Yellow Leaves = nutrient deficiency

White coating on leaves = Powdery Mildew

Leaves eaten = slugs/snails

One end of fruit rotting = Blossom End Rot

Storage Tips

Best eaten freshly picked, but they will store for a few days in the fridge.

Ways to cook

One of the best ways to eat courgettes is freshly harvested, sliced and griddled on the barbecue, with a drizzle of olive oil, a pinch of chopped chillies and a sprinkle of mint.

Recipe Ideas

Coming soon!

Do I need to sign for them?
All our plug plant orders are dispatched with an overnight courier* to mainland UK and do not need to be signed for when they are delivered, but will be left somewhere safe. When placing your order, please let us know where you would like the plug plants left if you are not in when the courier delivers.

We will keep you posted
You will receive an email approximately a week before your order is dispatched and another on the day your plug plants are packed and leave us so you know to expect and prepare for their arrival.

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