Calling experienced gardeners: Need help with dying yellow courgette plant!

b.cummins

b.cummins

b.cummins

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Joined
23 Mar 2006
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Location
Guildford, Surrey
So I fancy myself a bit of an amateur gardener and I'm having a lot of success growing a range of plants. one thing however that isn't going so well, is my yellow courgette plant.

When I first got the plant about a month ago, it was a relatively new seedling with 2 primary leaves. The stalk kinda curves out, it's not a straight plant and I don't know if this is an issue. I planted it in one of my wooden pots (about 20cm diameter, square pot) with some general purpose and organic compost and fed it weekly with liquid feed. I watered it either daily or every two days, depending on how dry the compost got.

For a while, the plant was doing well. It's in a position where it gets full sun for a good portion of the day and all my other veggies appreciate the same positioning as I have a south facing garden. It's grown a good number of it's proper leaves.

I have noticed a few things. Since day 1, it has never been a vibrant green colour; although I assumed this was just the nature of the plant. I did notice an initial problem where the edges of the leaves were dying, slowly moving inwards (as in going brown and drying out). This didn't seem to be an issue as the rate and size of new leaves was good, however I've now noticed most of the leaves die shortly after sprouting. I've now moved the plant to a much larger pot, with richer veg compost and I've been running a course of tomato feed every couple of days to see if it in improves together with it's regular watering. So far it's not getting better and the leaves are slowly dying. it's also not really growing much at all.

Can anyone weigh in on an opinion of why this might be happening?
 
b.cummins said:
So I fancy myself a bit of an amateur gardener and I'm having a lot of success growing a range of plants. one thing however that isn't going so well, is my yellow courgette plant.

When I first got the plant about a month ago, it was a relatively new seedling with 2 primary leaves. The stalk kinda curves out, it's not a straight plant and I don't know if this is an issue. I planted it in one of my wooden pots (about 20cm diameter, square pot) with some general purpose and organic compost and fed it weekly with liquid feed. I watered it either daily or every two days, depending on how dry the compost got.

For a while, the plant was doing well. It's in a position where it gets full sun for a good portion of the day and all my other veggies appreciate the same positioning as I have a south facing garden. It's grown a good number of it's proper leaves.

I have noticed a few things. Since day 1, it has never been a vibrant green colour; although I assumed this was just the nature of the plant. I did notice an initial problem where the edges of the leaves were dying, slowly moving inwards (as in going brown and drying out). This didn't seem to be an issue as the rate and size of new leaves was good, however I've now noticed most of the leaves die shortly after sprouting. I've now moved the plant to a much larger pot, with richer veg compost and I've been running a course of tomato feed every couple of days to see if it in improves together with it's regular watering. So far it's not getting better and the leaves are slowly dying. it's also not really growing much at all.

Can anyone weigh in on an opinion of why this might be happening?
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Drowning it? We were having similar issues with our pumpkin plants, turned out we were drowning them. We don't feed out plants anything, they just sit in compost and get on with it.

I water the plants every 3 days, 2 days if it's really hot, the pumpkin... Once a week I water it, however, when I do water, I soak it to the bone!

ags
 
b.cummins said:
Calling experienced gardeners: Need help with dying yellow courgette plant!
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What colour do you want to dye it?
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The leaves dying from the tips is often a sign of over-nutrition. The plant pushes the nutrients to its extremities, which then get become poisoned and die.

Stop with the liquid plant feed and switch to just water, and see how the new shoots progress. There should be plenty of nutrients in the compost, you don't really need to add more unless the plants show signs of deficiency.
 
jimbob27 said:
The leaves dying from the tips is often a sign of over-nutrition. The plant pushes the nutrients to its extremities, which then get become poisoned and die.

Stop with the liquid plant feed and switch to just water, and see how the new shoots progress. There should be plenty of nutrients in the compost, you don't really need to add more unless the plants show signs of deficiency.
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Would you recommend holding off on water and additional nutrition?
 
On a side note, if the pot is "too nutritious" for the plant Another thing I've thought about is that it's sufficiently big enough to add more plans to the pot, do you think it's worth trying this to try and create some healthy competition for the nutrients?
 
b.cummins said:
On a side note, if the pot is "too nutritious" for the plant Another thing I've thought about is that it's sufficiently big enough to add more plans to the pot, do you think it's worth trying this to try and create some healthy competition for the nutrients?
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This is often not needed, the roots will only take what they need, compost is a very nutritional source for plants, but the beauty of it is that plants will only take what is needed. When you give plants 'food' they will have no choice but the reject it which in turn leaves the plant nowehere to go for natural resources.

Like said above, use basic tap water ever couple or few days for a few weeks and see what happens.

I judge my watering period by sticking my finger into the compost/soil as deep as my first knuckle (mid knuckle, not the bit beefy one at your palm), if your finger comes out dry... You need to water it...

Wow that came out dodgy lol.

ags
 
agnes said:
This is often not needed, the roots will only take what they need, compost is a very nutritional source for plants, but the beauty of it is that plants will only take what is needed. When you give plants 'food' they will have no choice but the reject it which in turn leaves the plant nowehere to go for natural resources.

Like said above, use basic tap water ever couple or few days for a few weeks and see what happens.

I judge my watering period by sticking my finger into the compost/soil as deep as my first knuckle (mid knuckle, not the bit beefy one at your palm), if your finger comes out dry... You need to water it...

Wow that came out dodgy lol.

ags
Click to expand...
never heard of nutrient burn or nutrient lockout ?
 
as a side note if your going to drown all you plants in dodgy food and fertilisers you may as well just get your veg from a supermarket it will be cheaper and won't contain any worse chemicals!
 
a1ex2001 said:
as a side note if your going to drown all you plants in dodgy food and fertilisers you may as well just get your veg from a supermarket it will be cheaper and won't contain any worse chemicals!
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In my own defence,

I don't feed all my plants. I'm using tomato feed on my strawberries, sweet green peppers, tomatoes and courgette, simply because it's recommended. I'm growing my cabbages and herbs on Compost and water, using organic pesticide to keep off the pests.

I'd also like to ask you if you've found yellow courgettes in the supermarket, because I certainly haven't!

I think I may plant some kind of root veg round the edges of my pot. At least then if the courgette dies, it won't be a total waste of such a large planter!
 
Most potting soil/compost comes with a dose of nutrients already in it, soil for seedling is generally quite mild in terms of added ferts.

I would do as above, don't feed any more just use water. Some pre pack soils are actually quite rich in added fert and wont require any extra feed depending on what you are growing, for at least a year or full season.

Over feeding is actually more common than under feeding, its all to easy to get carried away and your plants will literally OD on fert.

If your planter has good drainage, give them a 'flush' which involves giving them loads of water, and allowing it to drain out the bottom, taking some of the excess nutrients with it. Obviously they wont need water for a while after as the soil will be saturated.
 
b.cummins said:
Care to elaborate?
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Firt burn as its commonly known is generally too much nitrogen, resulting in yellow tips and leaf edges that eventually go brown and almost look burnt.

Lock out is to do with the soil ecology: its when there is nutrient present in the soil but it is not accessible to the plant, can be due to PH issues or over fertilizing causing increased build up of salts. Flushing and going easy on the feed is the solution to both.
 
fert burn is not too much nitrogen. excess nitrogen shows up as darkgreen leaves that may go slightly blueish and they will eventually curl at the tips and produce slightly deformed leaves.

fert burn with burnt leaf tips and rust spots is from overfeeding with tomato food, which is high in P&K. a combination of overwatering and over use of tomato food will lock out nitrogen, causing yellowing of leaves.

flush the pot with abit of extra water and next time it wants feeding, use baby bio which is 10N 2P 2K. tomato feed is ~4-5-5 and meant for when its heavily FRUITING.
 
zipp0r said:
fert burn is not too much nitrogen. excess nitrogen shows up as darkgreen leaves that may go slightly blueish and they will eventually curl at the tips and produce slightly deformed leaves.

fert burn with burnt leaf tips and rust spots is from overfeeding with tomato food, which is high in P&K. a combination of overwatering and over use of tomato food will lock out nitrogen, causing yellowing of leaves.

flush the pot with abit of extra water and next time it wants feeding, use baby bio which is 10N 2P 2K. tomato feed is ~4-5-5 and meant for when its heavily FRUITING.
Click to expand...

Problem is, i'd been using baby bio up until last week, beforehand the problem was still occurring
 
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