sad courgette

[bumblebee]

Hi everyone,

I was hoping to pick your collective brains about one of my courgette plants...

A while ago I got a baby organic courgette from B&Q and also planted some from seed. The ones from seed seem to be doing ok, but the other one isn't looking too great. Some of the leaves have gone a bit discoloured and kind of dried up. However the plant is still growing new leaves and there are a few wee flowers on it but when the leaves get bigger they discloure and dry up again. Very curious! Is there anything I can do to save the poor wee thing or is it destined for the big courgette bed in the sky?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!

[red]

is it planted in the ground or in a pot?

[Gem]

If its in pot then it may just need feeding/repotting. The big chain sellers use small pots but regularly feed so they use up less space but still look good enough to sell on. If its still in the same pot then that could well be the problem. I regularly repot my potted courgettes into bigger and better homes as they do tend to bolt and die otherwise.. If you are wondering what pot size then I generally go with the bigger the better.

[Millymollymandy]

Last year I bought some organic tomato plants as well as some non organic ones, and ditto organic peppers.

None of the organic ones did very well at all yet the non organic did very well.

I won't waste money buying organic plants again. They are all raised pretty much organically once I get them anyway so really what is the difference?

[bumblebee]

Wow, thanks for all the feedback! It is in a pot but repotted from when we bought it. However, we planted it in a much larger pot (an old cat bed) outside yesterday evening in the hope that that would help it along. I'll keep my fingers crossed that it will perk up and will keep you posted! Thanks! x

[citizentwiglet]

How are you watering it? We have one courgette in a fairly big tub at home - we planted it with a 'moat' around it (imagine that the plant looks as though it's sprouted out of the top of a volcano), and we water quite heavily into the moat every day.

I have two courgette plants - both grown from the BBC Dig In seeds (Black Beauty variety) and transplanted, rather than grown in situ. The one at home is doing really well in a tub of organic compost (it's the Levington Potato and Vegetable organic growbag contents opened up and tipped into a pot, basically), it gets sun from morning until about 3pm at the moment. The one in the community garden raised bed is, apparently, in much better soil (organic compost with worm cast and basalt dust added) and was planted exactly the same way, but is in a very open aspect and gets sun pretty much all day, and gets the wind as well. The one at the community garden, which I would have expected to do better, looks quite sad. It's growing, but the leaves are all tinged yellow at the edges. My french beans are the same - my climbing beans at home are doing great (they are next to the courgette, so are getting the same amount of sun); the ones in the community garden are, again, rather weak looking and yellowish - they aren't growing as fast as the ones at home.

I've treated them with seaweed fertiliser, and with nitrogen; but to no avail. I'm thinking scorch - could that be the same for you? Too much sun/wind? Could you try moving it to somewhere where it will get full sun in the morning and early afternoon, and then get shaded? It might just work......