I have been growing courgettes as part of our vegetable menu for almost 60 years but this season they came up in a most peculiar fashion. The seeds came through quite normally and, after hardening off, were planted out in a well-prepared bed.
All progressing as usual and then, in July, Mrs GG asked me to accompany her to look at
them because the fruits were coming up, not in an elongated form but as lime green and
yellow, cricket ball sized things. Then they began climbing up all over the vegetable cage
netting. Next thing were courgettes that looked like pale yellow small marrows with warts
on, closely followed by short, fat green striped courgettes also with warts.
Last week Mrs GG decided to harvest one of the warted small marrows. It peeled OK and
the flesh inside looked perfectly normal. She removed the seed and stuffed the offending
courgette with a lovely lamb mix. This was roasted accompanied by our own aubergines
and sweet peppers, which she also stuffed.
They smelled delightful when coming out of the oven. But that was the last good thing
about them. One mouthful each and the bitterness was overwhelming. We had to throw
the entire meal away.
Within an hour of that one mouthful each we were both convulsed with quite severe
stomach pains and then repeated attacks of diarrhoea that lasted with Mrs GG for two and a half days and a little shorter for me.
I looked it up on the web only to find that this poisoning is caused by the courgettes forming cucurbitacin B and C and it is, apparently, not uncommon. It tells me that cucurbitacin B is “extremely toxic when ingested.” I spoke to a lady at Thompson & Morgan, whose seeds I had grown, who seemed mildly surprised that I had never heard of this happening before and that we had both swallowed the bitter food. She told me that this was comparatively common so why, I asked, is there no warning on the seed packet? She said she will look into it.
A very concerned lady did telephone me later, just as I evacuated the wc for the umpteenth time, to ask how my wife and I were and hoped we were feeling better. I then received an email from a third lady at Thompson & Morgan’s customer services team who never mentioned the fact that we had both been ill or answered anything about adding warnings to the seed packets explaining that cucurbitacin B is toxic. She said that “my observations and comments will be passed to the Nursery Manager” adding that “as a show of goodwill on our behalf we have created a £10 voucher” that I can redeem online.
No thanks, a few words of concern would have gone down far better.
If this problem is as common as Thompson & Morgan make out, why no warning on the seed packets?
I’ll go to a different seed supplier next season.
Happy gardening and watch out for those pesky courgettes!
Graham The Grumpy Gardener
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