Courgette
Cucurbita pepo · Gourd family
Plant portrait
Large leaves, yellow flowers and fruits picked young. Courgettes can be long or round, green or yellow.
Harvested part
The young fruits; the flowers are edible too.
What to watch for
Watch the flowers and developing fruits. A courgette left on the plant keeps growing; the size wanted for cooking depends on the variety and use.
Growth stages of the courgette
Plotilo illustrates the courgette in 7 stages in 3D: seed, small sprout, young plant, growing, flowering, developing fruit and harvest. The models show typical shapes; they do not predict how long growth takes.
- Seed
Starting from a seed. It is shown on the surface to make it visible in this illustration.
- Small sprout
A short first stem and its first small leaves emerge.
- Young plant
The young plant carries more leaves and starts to take its own shape.
- Growing
Leaves and stems develop. Their shape depends on the species.
- Flowering
Flowers are shown before fruit begins to form.
- Developing fruit
Fruit begins to develop on the plant.
- Harvest
An illustration of the harvested part. Roots are made visible for clarity; this image does not confirm actual maturity.
Same botanical family
Same botanical family as the courgette (the gourd family): the cucumber, the pumpkin, the squash, the bottle gourd, the melon and the watermelon. Gardeners usually avoid growing the same family in the same spot several years in a row: that is the idea behind crop rotation.