Last weekend we harvested our first courgettes of the year, and we’ve been doing so regularly ever since. The week before had been a busy one for me, and I’d barely found time to get out into the garden. I’d seen that there were some courgettes just about ready, but I left them for the weekend. The weekend came and we were away visiting family all day Saturday, and it wasn’t until Sunday afternoon that I got out into the garden. There had been a lot of rain on Friday and Saturday (I’m sure I heard somewhere that we had a month’s worth in 24 hours). I don’t know whether that gave everything a boost, or whether it was just because I hadn’t been out there for a few days, but everything had grown so much!

Courgettes growing in the pumpkin patch

Regular readers will remember that I planted a single courgette plant in the vegetable patch back in June. This plant had two sizeable courgettes on, and more female flowers in development. Looking in the pumpkin patch on my way back to the house I saw that one of the yellow courgette plants (we have two of these, they were the first courgette plants to be planted after we cleared the patch) had four big courgettes on. So it was with great pride that I returned to the house clutching my precious bounty of six fresh courgettes.

Our first courgettes of the year. Hopefully many more to follow.

We are getting on average one or two courgettes a day at the moment. This is just from three plants. I’ve seen that a fourth courgette plant (variety Cocozelle, a stripy courgette) which we planted out later than the others, has two courgettes nearly ready on it. There are another couple of plants not quite mature yet, so based on how the mature ones are flourishing, we can expect to get a lot of courgettes this summer. But what to do with all these courgettes? This is a common problem amongst gardeners. Thankfully there are many solutions, and I hope to share the various recipes we try in the coming weeks.

For this first batch of courgettes – the first of the season – we wanted to do something that made the courgette the star of the show, something simple. We settled on griddling them in olive oil. Firstly we sliced them and sprinkled a little salt over them. This was mainly to draw moisture out, but I also like the seasoned taste in the final product. We left them for about 10 minutes or so and then lined a griddle pan with a little olive oil and turned the heat on. Once it was up to temperature we pressed each slice between our hands lightly to remove any excess moisture, before placing the slices into the griddle pan and hearing that delicious sizzling sound.

We thoroughly enjoyed our charred, soft, moist and slightly salted courgette slices. Since then we’ve mainly had courgette omelettes, courgette pizza and the so-called courgetti (a spaghetti substitute made from courgettes cut into long thin strips by a device known as a spirilizer). The courgette pizza is a favourite with the kids. They love picking their own courgettes and ask for courgette pizza which they devour with enthusiasm. They probably wouldn’t be keen on the idea if the courgettes were shop bought. That alone makes growing them worthwhile. I’m sure I will post back with more courgette recipes in the near future.