The courgettes are in!

It was a bit windy today and the window of the shed blew off. Luckily, Will is the master of DIY and fixed it easily...

I also went to a shop today and bought a lot of reduced plants, still OK for planting but in need of TLC. A couple of French Lavender (those were only 20p while they were originally £5 each) and some Foxgloves and lupin, and a thyme. I planted them in today making sure I left plenty of space for growth and following the instructions on the label. I always find it strange to leave 1 m each side of tiny plants but then to realise it is much needed indeed... I have also removed one of the sage from our garden to plant in the allotment. It was getting too big and killing the plants around it. The idea behind getting some flowers in the allotment is to attract the pollinators (bees, bumblebees and butterflies) so they pollinate plants, such as courgettes, for example.

On a more productive side, I decided to plant my courgettes today. I have four plants in total. One that I will keep at home in a planter (a BIG one) and three that will go in bed 1. I have sown three different varieties: two golden rush, a zucchino genovese and a Cavili F1.

The Golden rush courgette is a small bush that does yellow courgettes, so 'ideal' for pots (hence the one I keep at home...). The zucchino genovese produces light green courgettes (seeds provided by a friend) and the Cavili F1 plant doesn't require pollination (*) and produce dark green courgettes. I decided to plant different varieties to try on and see which one is liking it best on the allotment. So here are my courgettes in their bed and planted with plenty of well rotted manure:

In order, from left down to right up: Cavili F1, Golden Rush, Zucchino Genovese. 

Cavili is the smallest because I sowed it last, ie about 2 weeks ago. The other ones were sown early April. Behind you can see some of the other plants I planted today. The one in bloom is the sage.

(*) Pollination of courgettes:

Courgette plants produce two type of flowers, the female type, which produce the courgette and the male one which is 'only' a flower at the end of a stem. For a courgette to grow, a pollinator, for example a bee, needs to visit the male flower then visit a female flower and deposit the pollen of the male flower. This is called pollination. Then the stem of the female flower will grow into a courgette. If female flowers don't get pollinated they just fall off. 

Even at an early stage, the female flower looks like a mini courgette with a flower at the end, so if the plant doesn't grow courgettes, someone has to behave like a bee and do the pollination... by hand. 

In the case of the Cavili F1 which doesn't need pollination, I'm not sure if the flowers are both male and female at the same time so wind can pollinate them, or if it's another trick of mother nature so I'll have to watch the plant out and report back!