Every summer I always vow to not plant so many courgette plants the following year. Every spring I forget this!!
So I thought i’d see how other members are dealing with bumper crops of various sorts.
Main contenders at the moment seem to be courgettes followed by plums, and soon to be tomatoes.
Any cunning ideas? Different recipes, preserving ideas or your own glut dilemma to share?
Haven’t really got a glut of Red Kuri (potimaron)
but I like the photo!! Soon going to be submerged in walnuts though - the huge tree is about to drop them all over the grass and gravel. I wish walnuts fell into orderly piles leaving the outer black shell on the tree.
Wow!
Let’s try again… Sorry that only one of yours has grown Jill. I sowed four seeds in pots in the polytunnel and planted them out in the ground in May and off they went. Had meant to restrict their growth but they’d covered their plot before I knew it! Now to try to upload a photo.
Deleted the wrong reply… ooops!
Deep fried in tempura batter? Bet they are delicious - a bit like pineapple fritters…!
Wish you were near, would love some, I only have one that has grown!
OK, we now have a glut of Charentais Magenta melons. Been eating them for days and still have 16 lovely ripe ones. Just emailed friends to see if they can help! Might end up juicing them.
I don’t grow any courgettes now. Decided that I would buy a few if, and when, we wanted them. I still have bags of grated courgettes from last year. They freeze very well if they are sliced and open frozen (then bagged) or grated. Just add to soups or stews later in the year. A neighbour planted 15 courgette plants last year. I think that she thought one courgette grew on one plant. There is an amusing (and useful book) called “What am I going to do with all these courgettes?” (or something similar!). There’s also a book called “Tomatoes” with more ideas for the tomato glut. I use my juice extractor and process the extra tomatoes into coulis and then freeze for pasta sauces etc.
Now I have a freezer full of soft fruit. I have made kilos of jam and jelly. So many jars that I have had to off load crockery so that I can store the jam!!! Eleven years in France and every year it’s a case of ‘never again, next year we’ll…’!!
Glad I’m not the only one! Yet my plant looks healthy but not that big. I gather it’s been a bit of a disastrous year for various fruit and veg, my plums this year were really in abundance, apples are better, quinces are good, peaches loads of them, the boughs are dragging on the ground with the weight, but - they look blackish not happy, they are the small variety, and are never really that good anyway.
my potager is a joke! my potatoes were rubbish, carrots are only about 3" high at the mo, red cabbages the same, onions are too hidden by weeds now so haven’t dug any up to see what they are like, some have a round ball flower on top, so basically have given up with that lot now.
But my flowers look good especially my sunflowers!
I had one courgette plant this year because normally we have more than we can eat and absolutely nothing. Not a single courgette. And the plant itself looks distinctly unhealthy. I hadn’t bothered to investigate more closely because TBH, we are up to our ears renovating the house so the garden is taking a back seat at the moment but interesting that this has also happened to you.
You know what - this is the first year with NO COURGETTES AT ALL! I can not understand it, I had 2 plants one died, and the other I rescued and put in a grow bag with decent compost, I have had lots of new flowers nearly everyday, then they drop off, and no courgettes just straight stalks, so I gather they have not been fertilized? Why? wish I knew!
I have loads of courgettes as well! Any that we cant eat I am chopping into little cubes and then freezing… can then add handfulls to stirfrys, lasagnas etc. Doing it this way as heard that if you freeze them any bigger then go all mushy!
Let me know if you have any other ideas