Grow Your Own Snozzcumbers
21.08.2023 - 12:02
/ theunconventionalgardener.com
/ Emma Doughty
As anyone who is anyone knows, the BFG (Big Friendly Giant) eats snozzcumbers. Because he refuses to eat people (human beans) he has to eat lots and lots of snozzcumbers. The snozzcumber is a giant vegetable, watery and bitter, but the BFG has a tasty drink called frobscottle to help wash them down.
And everyone knows that the snozzcumber varies from nine to twelve feet long. It has black and white stripes, and warts all over its surface.
What nobody knows is that, many years ago, human scientists took the snozzcumber and bred smaller versions that can be grown in the garden. These mini-snozzcumbers are much tastier than the giant snozzcumbers, but in order to convince people to eat them the scientists gave them a new name, and didn’t tell people they were mini-snozzcumbers.
But I can now reveal the secret – but only to you, and you’re not to tell anyone! If you want to grow mini-snozzcumbers in your garden, you have to buy courgette plants or seeds, because that’s what the scientists called them.
There are lots of different sorts of courgettes, some of which look more like their snozzcumber relatives than others. There are stripy ones and plain green ones, yellow ones and round ones, warty ones and smooth ones. In my garden this year I have yellow, warty, bottle-shaped mini-snozzcumbers, and they are very tasty indeed.
Mini-snozzcumbers are very easy to grow. Once you have chosen which one you want, sow your seeds in April in little pots of compost indoors. Water them, and keep them warm, and soon the snozzcumbers will start to grow. In June, when the nights are warm, you can plant your snozzcumbers out in the garden (and if you buy plants, not seeds, this is when you plant them out).
Although these are mini-snozzcumbers,