I wanted to give my courgettes a chance to grow good long roots, so I put them in compost-filled toilet rolls on top of pots, the idea being that the courgette would grow roots all the way down the toilet roll and pot, and I'd plant the toilet roll along with the plant, because wet cardboard disintegrates pretty quickly in the soil.
That part worked well. The courgette grew its roots all the way down to the bottom of the pot. Unfortunately it turns out that courgettes aren't keen on growing stems strong enough to support their leaves without the help of the ground. So what they did was lean on the rim of the toilet roll, leading most of them to snap their stems part way across. This was particularly problematic when I added the extra stress of moving them in and out of the shed to harden them off.
The strange thing is, they snapped several days ago and the leaves aren't dying. I'm wondering if this is something they can survive or not. I only have a couple that haven't snapped at all. I haven't put any of those straight in the earth yet, as this is a bit of an experiment to see how well they do in April - there could still be frosts that ruin everything. I'm not sure whether to brave putting more out on Sunday 26 (4 days before May) or whether to wait till Friday 1 May.
We've also cleared a bit more of the garden, as I wanted more space to grow cucurbits after Kitchen Garden magazine sent me some exciting-looking winter squash seeds that I wanted to be able to grow (Sweet Dumpling). Well, I say we, I didn't fancy challenging my back and hip pain by that level of clearance work, so luckily my other half volunteered to do it:
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