The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: suziequeue on July 28, 2012, 11:19:14 am

Title: Courgette - is this slug damage??
Post by: suziequeue on July 28, 2012, 11:19:14 am

This courgette seems to have made a start and then given up. The thin end is soft and emaciated (Pic 1).


When I cut is open it looks like a slug has good in and eaten its way along to about halfway then stopped (Pic 2)


I think there is a characteristic slug entry point (Pic 3)


Am I right??

Title: Re: Courgette - is this slug damage??
Post by: darkbrowneggs on July 28, 2012, 11:53:33 am

I haven't looked this up, but from memory it shows that the female flower (which has become a courgette) was not fertilized.  The male flowers are the ones on the long thin stalks which come out first.  :)

Title: Re: Courgette - is this slug damage??
Post by: Fleecewife on July 28, 2012, 12:32:28 pm

Darkbrowneggs is correct - it's because the female flower was not fertilised.  It often happens at the beginning of the season, when there tends to be a flush of either all male or all female flowers, or there are no insects .  You can help fertilisation if you take a male flower, if you have one, and remove the petals then wipe the pollen from the inside bit into the female flower.  One male flower can then fertilise two or three females.
The hole will just be because the seeds have not developed.