Composting Bins and Prize Courgette (Zucchini)
Growing Courgettes or Zucchinis as they are known in the USA, isn’t really difficult generally speaking. However I just had to include this beauty that my sister has growing in her back garden (behind the chicken coop actually). She tells me it happened almost by accident as she had a compost bin full of compost, and nothing to do with it – so she decided to throw In a Courgette plant that was spare from her greenhouse growing.
The result quite astounded her, as the tiny plant grew into an impressive monster – far outstripping the same plants grown with tender care and love in a greenhouse environment! She has had several monster Zucchinis from this plant already – the last one so big she gave it to the local Indian restaurant – and looks like she will have a few more before the growing season is over.
So what can this growing success be put down to? Well to be fair, it is not due to all the care lavished on the monster plant; as mentioned it was grown in a compost bin at the back of her garden – all she did was water it occasionally.
The ‘secret’ to this massive growth was down to one thing – the well-rotted compost material in the bin. This was compost made up of general garden waste, kitchen waste and a good mix of grass and leaf moult.
Left to rot for 2 + years, and so in an ideal condition for growing vegetables. Simple really, and emphasises the prime ingredients for growing any vegetable; nutrients, water and sunlight – the results of the right mix of these three ingredients means that a healthy plant is almost inevitable.
All this just empathises the results that you can achieve by composting
. I know that it takes a while before you first see results; but once you get started then you will have ‘fresh’ compost year-on-year if you do it correctly – and exercise some patience.
Oh yes, plant care….hmmm this particular plant has had very little, but I have to say, this is quite exceptional and not the general rule – and it seldom pays to make a rule out of an exception 🙂
Making your own compost
Creating your own compost is not difficult, and indeed it could be said that being able to make your own compost is an essential part of being a vegetable gardener – what else would you do with all the scap vegetable cuttings and other organic material from the garden, if not composting them.
There are many ways to make your own compost, but the basics are just to follow a compost recipe, and to create a space to put your material into – like this 3-bin pallet system for compost.
If you follow the simple rules in this article then you could be using your own compost in just a few months – and feeding it to your own vegetables!
