The longest courgette was 2.52 m (8 ft. 3 in) long. The
longest zucchini was also exactly the same size. The reason for this isn’t a
strange coincidence; it’s that they are the same vegetable.
It all depends where you come from. In the United States,
Australia and Germany, the plant is commonly called a zucchini. But here,
Belgium the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the Netherlands we refer to them as
courgettes.
When is a courgette not a courgette? The answer to this is
pretty vague but generally when a courgette gets to a certain size it is
classed as a marrow, (which is what I think the longest courgette was but I
wouldn’t be bothered to argue about it). I think most countries call them
marrows when you can’t pick them up with one hand, although in South Africa they are harvested
pencil size as ‘baby marrows’.
Prolific Courgettes
Regardless of what they are called, these prolific summer
squashes are in full production at this time of year. So much so that there has
been a “Sneak some zucchini onto a neighbours porch” campaign in America as
people find they run out of ways to eat them.
We have courgettes growing in our garden. As we only have a
few plants we haven’t tried to palm them off to relatives and neighbours. We
are getting most of the fruit (yes they are a fruit as they have seeds in them)
when they are young and juicy, some of them are missed though and soon turn
into the size of rugby balls. These are good stuffed but give me the young
fresh ones any day. You can eat them even younger as well. The flowers are
edible and can also be fried up or used as a case for stuffing things into.
Pests and disease
The damp weather sometimes rots the courgettes so having a
bit of dry ground under them helps, so does keeping the air circulation good by
chopping back a few large leaves every now and then. I’ve also found some of
the spent flowers can start to rot the tips if they don’t fall off so sometimes
I nip them out to avoid this. There are a few pests and diseases that effect
courgettes. The fungal disease powdery mildew turns the leaves white, but I’ve
always been lucky with this and if any of the plants succumb it’s usually well
after all the courgettes have been picked. The main pest is usually slugs, but
even these seem to get a bit fed up of them after a while. Maybe it’s the skin
getting thicker; wither way the slugs seem to leave them to grow un-chewed.
Recipes
I had a look on Google for recipe suggestions and there are
websites that will offer you over 100 different ways to prepare the courgette
so it’ll be a long time until I run out of ideas. My mother in law doesn’t
follow recipes very often and she made her own soup last week with her own
courgettes and broad bean concoction which went down very well with everyone at
the Amma relaxation day in Clonmany. All
in all then, courgettes make a great first time crop for a new gardener and
gives you the opportunity to make both sweet and savoury dishes out of them. You can even grate them raw and add
them to salads and they make great noodles. Apparently they do have a lot of
vitamin C in them.
Whoppers
Talking of huge record breaking vegetables: My chum is growing his prized onions for this
year’s autumn horticultural shows like the one we get in Carndonagh. He gets the mighty onion seeds from Peter
Glazebrook who grows some of the largest onions in the world and gives them a
really long growing season by starting them off in a greenhouse under
artificial light. Adding loads of well-rotted horse nick the onions grow
quickly.
One of Peter’s tips for growing large examples such as this is to
concentrate your efforts of just a few and pay them a lot of attention, in much
the same way you would with a courgette crop. Too many and you can’t keep on
top of them. After saying that, you should see marks polytunnel full of leeks.
There’s a sight to behold. They aren’t
grown for young tender tastes and texture, simply for showing in competitions.
It’s another world but an entertaining one.
