How to Grow Courgettes in the UK
On this page
- Courgette (Cucurbita pepo)
- Watch: Growing Courgettes at Home
- Quick Facts
- At a Glance
- Regional Planting Calendar
- Do You Need Two Plants? (And Does Tomato Feed Help?)
- Growth Stages
- Soil & Growing Conditions
- Harvest & Storage
- Diseases
- Pests
- Pollination
- Courgettes, Seed to Harvest
- Plan your Courgettes planting
- Growing Courgette in another region
- References
- Nutrient Issues
- Frequently Asked Questions
In the UK, courgettes are sown early May to late June, planted out late May to late June, and are ready to harvest 55 days after planting out.
Timing is the decision that matters most in the UK: there are 4 separate regional planting out windows, ranging from late May in Southern England to early June in Scotland.
The short answer
- Sow
- Early May to late June
- Plant out
- Late May to late June
- Ready in
- 55 days after planting out
- Site
- 6+ hours of sun, soil pH 6–6.5
- Biggest risk
- Grey mould
Core growing advice on this page is checked against named horticultural sources — see References.
Courgette (Cucurbita pepo)
Also known as: Zucchini · 18 sources cited · Verified
Watch: Growing Courgettes at Home
A quick SoilCommander video on growing your own courgettes (zucchini) at home in the UK.
Quick Facts
At a Glance
Regional Planting Calendar
| Region | Sow | Plant out |
|---|---|---|
| Southern England | early May to late June | late May to late June |
| Midlands derived | early May to late June | early June to early July |
| Northern England derived | early May to late June | early June to mid July |
| Scotland | early May to late June | early June to mid July |
Rows marked derived are interpolated between regions our sources do state, because no source we consulted gives a figure for that region specifically. They are deliberately wider to reflect that uncertainty.
Southern England - detail & sources
RHS: plant out "after the last frosts in late May/early June". Southern England mapped to the earlier end since Met Office confirms southern/coastal frost clears earliest.
Midlands - detail & sources
DERIVED: interpolated between the Southern England and Scotland windows; no Midlands-specific source exists.
Northern England - detail & sources
DERIVED: no Northern-England-specific source; set close to but slightly ahead of the Scotland window per Met Office's general north/altitude frost-lag pattern.
Scotland - detail & sources
RHS: plant out "after the last frosts in late May/early June". Scotland mapped to the later end since Met Office confirms further-north/higher-ground frost lingers into May, sometimes June.
Do You Need Two Plants? (And Does Tomato Feed Help?)
Do you need two plants to get fruit? No -- one is enough. Courgettes are monoecious, carrying separate male and female flowers on the same plant (Iowa State University Extension confirms this directly: "they produce separate male and female flowers on the same plant"). What you do need is pollinating insects to move pollen between those flowers, since the plant can't do it alone -- in cool, dull early-summer weather when bees are less active, fruit can fail to set or rot off while small. If that happens, hand-pollinate: transfer pollen from a freshly opened male flower onto a female flower with a soft brush, or press the two together.
Does tomato feed help? Yes, genuinely -- tomato feed is a high-potash liquid fertiliser, and that's the exact feed type called for once the first fruits start to swell (every 10-14 days for container-grown plants; in-ground plants in reasonable soil usually don't need it at all).
Growth Stages
| Stage | BBCH | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sowing & Germination | 0 | SOWING DEPTH: 13mm (½in) deep when started indoors in small pots; 2.5cm (1in) deep when sown direct outdoors, two or three seeds per station at least 90cm (3ft) apart, thinned to the strongest seedling (RHS). TIMING: sow indoors in April or early May for an earlier, more reliable crop; sow direct outdoors from late May or early June once the soil has warmed and frost risk has passed (RHS). GERMINATION: needs 18-21°C (65-70°F); frost-tender at every stage and must never be sown or planted out while frost is still likely. |
| Vegetative Growth & Planting Out | 3 | SPACING: harden off indoor-raised plants and plant out, or thin direct-sown seedlings, to at least 90cm (3ft) apart -- allow roughly one square metre per plant (RHS). Water at the base rather than over the leaves to reduce the risk of grey mould and powdery mildew, and keep the soil consistently moist (RHS; Clemson: moisten soil to a depth of 6in with a uniform moisture supply). Bushy (non-trailing) cultivars are the norm in UK gardens. |
| Flowering & Pollination | 6 | Plants are monoecious, carrying separate male and female flowers on the same vine. Male flowers appear first and lack a swelling behind the petal; female flowers have a miniature fruit already visible at the base (UMD). Bees normally carry pollen from male to female flowers; in cool, dull early-summer weather insect activity drops and fruit can fail to set or rot off while small -- this resolves as the weather warms, or can be corrected by hand-pollinating: transfer pollen from a freshly opened male flower onto the stigma of a female flower with a soft brush, or press the two flowers together (RHS; UMD). Feed container-grown plants every 10-14 days with a high-potash liquid fertiliser once the first fruits start to swell; in-ground plants in reasonable soil usually need no feeding (RHS). |
| Fruit Development | 7 | Fruit swells rapidly once set. Keep watering consistent -- irregular watering and poor pollination are the main causes of fruit rotting or failing to develop. Watch the foliage for the powdery, dusty white coating of powdery mildew and fuzzy grey growth of grey mould, both encouraged by still, humid air and overhead watering (RHS); good airflow and watering at the base help prevent both. |
| Ripening & Harvest | 8 | HARVEST: cut courgettes while small, tender and full of flavour, at 10-12.5cm (4-5in) long, using a knife rather than pulling to avoid damaging the plant (RHS). Check plants daily once cropping begins and pick every couple of days -- a single healthy plant can produce three or four fruits a week in good weather; regular picking keeps more fruit coming, while a fruit left on the plant swells into a marrow and slows further production (RHS; Clemson). No storage method is given by RHS; Clemson recommends refrigerating in a plastic bag for up to a week. |
Soil & Growing Conditions
Harvest & Storage
Diseases
Pests
Pollination
Honeybees Apis mellifera
RHS: "Pollination is usually carried out by insects", with honeybees named as the main pollinators. Poor fruit set follows "Lack of pollination due to low activity of pollinating insects, mainly honeybees, during periods of poor and cold weather"; symptoms are that "Young fruitlets are aborted and will drop off" and "The flower end of the fruit will often shrivel up and start rotting". Growing under cover limits insect access. Hand-pollinate by picking a male flower (no fruitlet at its base), removing the petals to expose the anthers, and pressing it into the centre of the female flowers -- "One male flower will pollinate several female flowers".
Courgettes, Seed to Harvest
Plan your Courgettes planting
When to sow and plant Courgettes depends on your own frost dates. Check the UK vegetable planting calendar, or the month-by-month guides that cover Courgettes: April, May, June, July, August, September. To work out where it fits in your beds, sketch your plot in the free Garden Layout Planner.
Growing Courgette in another region
Sowing dates, frost timing and local advice differ by country. Use the guide for where you garden.
References
-
Bacterial wilt (no chemical control once infected; control cucumber beetles at first sign); powdery mildew at 50-90°F in dry weather with high humidity; downy mildew in moist conditions; gummy stem blight surviving on debris year to year, no resistant varieties, rotate to non-hosts such as corn for two or more years; anthracnose needing rainy cool weather for several days, overwintering on old vines, rotate three years; Alternaria leaf spot with bull's-eye rings at 60-90°F; Cercospora leaf spot at 79-90°F reinfecting new leaves every 7-10 days, rotate away from cucurbits 2-3 years; Fusarium wilt surviving in soil for many years with no chemical treatment.
-
RHS explicitly advises against slug pellets (even organic) due to wildlife harm, and cites RHS's own controlled trial finding no damage reduction from physical barriers (copper tape, bark mulch, eggshell, grit, wool) -- while also noting some other studies have shown copper barriers to repel slugs, a preserved disagreement rather than a silently resolved one. Details Nemaslug (Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita) biological control including application temperature range and its lack of effect on snails specifically.
-
Plant when soils are 65°F or after all frost danger has passed, sowing 4-6 seeds 1-2 in deep in mounds 4 ft apart and thinning to two plants; transplants 2 ft apart in rows 4-6 ft apart. With mulch and row covers, seeds or plants can be set out 2-3 weeks before the last frost. Do not apply organic mulch until soils reach 75°F. Summer squash takes 35-45 days to flowering; winter squash 45-55 days to mature from flowering. The first flowers are almost always male; female flowers carry a small fruit behind the flower. Harvest summer squash immature, 3-5 days after the flower opens, and winter squash once the rind resists a fingernail. Summer squash stores 2-4 days at 45-55°F; winter squash in cool dry conditions at 50-55°F.
18 independent sources are cited for this crop. Where they disagree - soil pH is the clearest case - every figure is preserved rather than averaged into false precision.
Nutrient Issues
Frequently Asked Questions
How many courgettes off one plant?
In good weather you can expect three or four fruits a week from one plant. Pick them small, at 10–12.5cm (4–5in) long: left on the plant, courgettes quickly grow into marrows (RHS).
Plan next season before the problems start
Most of the advice on this page comes down to timing and spacing — sowing at the right moment, rotating beds, and giving plants enough airflow. The UK Garden Planner lays your plot out month by month so those decisions are already made before the season starts.
Get the UK Garden Planner →Instant PDF download · Written for UK growing conditions
How this guide is put together
The growing data on this page — sowing windows, pests, diseases, soil and site requirements — comes from named horticultural sources, listed in References below, checked against RHS and Met Office guidance. An automated pipeline assembles that verified data into the page you're reading: it selects which facts to lead with and builds the surrounding prose and layout. It does not invent a date, a source or a number — where a verified value for a field isn't available, the page leaves it out rather than guessing. A person reviews and publishes each page; nothing goes live unverified.
Related Problem Guides
Last verified 2026-08-06
Where To Go From Here
Take this crop from reading into a written plan for your own beds.
Keep going
Plan the next step
Use the printable SoilCommander planner for your region to turn this guide into sowing dates, bed layouts and weekly garden tasks.