Is it ok to trim back a couple of courgette leaves?

[SlugLobber]

My courgette plant is now doing very well and is very productive (am already sick of them!). Only problem is, I planted out a bit too close to my red onions and the leaves are shading the onion seedlings. Will I damage the courgette plant by cutting a couple of leaves off and is there a special way to do it?

SL

[Pootle]

Can't swear to it - but I trimmed a few leaves off our monster for the very same reason (shading the lettuce too much!) and it responded with the biggest crop of courgettes the world has ever seen (I may be slightly exaggerating )

[Alison]

So long as you don't trim it back too much I shouldn't have thought that there would be a problem - just space them better next year!

[SlugLobber]

So long as you don't trim it back too much I shouldn't have thought that there would be a problem - just space them better next year!

Ha ha! I have no excuse, really. I last grew a courgette plant 2 years ago, so know how big they can get. This year things took sooooo long to get going, I thought it was going to stay small!

[Lavenderblue]

mine haven't got going yet, i am looking forward to the first one.

[SMS6]

My partner did this to ours at the weekend, quite severly- we're getting masses of them. So many infact that we can't keep up so I have to find time to do a Mammoth Soup make one evening this week.

3 days on and they don't seem to be suffering too much, I'll let you know if they keel over

[zazen999]

I trim mine back all the time, esp to get rid of any whitish leaves. If they are in the way of anything else, they get chopped. Never any problems.

[jackie j]

I have started to trim a few leaves off mine lots of courgettes going to make a bit of chutney

[Moyra]

I honestly do not know the correct answer to this one, only to say that I have removed leaves that have become too big and cumbersome and it doesn't seem to have done any harm.

[Demeter]

This all sounds good - I was only looking at mine today thinking how huge they have grown and what on earth I'm going to do it they get any bigger! And they are just getting into their stride now - had 8 or 10 baby courgettes off them so far and another 4 on their way, but barely started really and already they are giant (especially the Gold Rush F1s). Amazing to think that this all started from an ickle seed only a few short weeks ago!