The Best Yellow Courgettes to Grow

Vigorous courgettes are mainstays in the summer vegetable garden because they are so productive and easy to grow. Have you tried adding a yellow courgette to your variety mix? The bright yellow fruits are easy to see amidst the pointed green leaves, so they are less likely to be missed during routing picking. Plus, there are a few remarkable varieties that are so buttery-tasting and heavy bearing that some gardeners say they may be the best of all summer squash.

What Are Yellow Courgettes?

Starting in the 1960s, vegetable breeders at W. Altee Burpee Seeds in Pennsylvania began crossing ornamental gourds, yellow squash and courgettes to create a colourful yellow squash with the vigour and leaf type of courgettes. When Golden Zucchini was released in 1973, it was featured on the cover of the Burpee catalogue, with a special offer of 50 cents a packet if you also ordered Green Arrow peas. The catalogue promised a bushy growth habit and long production of flavourful fruits.

Burpee still sells Golden Zucchini as an heirloom variety, but updated strains have more to offer in terms of disease resistance, productivity and taste. For example, Golden Glory and Yellowfin resist powdery mildew, so they stay healthy longer in warm humid weather. Golden Star has short vines suitable for small beds and containers. A few varieties even set fruit with no pollinators in sight.

Self-Fertile Yellow Courgettes

In situations where pollination of squash blossoms by insects is likely to be weak, such as under row covers or inside high tunnels, you can grow parthenocarpic (self-fertile) varieties of yellow courgette. Bee visits are optional, so you can leave the plants under cover until you’re ready to start picking.

The widely available Golden Glory variety is parthenocarpic, as is Easypick Gold II, which has few prickles on the leaves compared to other yellow courgette varieties. The leaves still look like those of courgette, but lack its scratchy spines. It would be an ideal choice for a children’s garden.

Better Butter Squash

Yellow courgettes have the dense texture of green courgettes paired with sweet notes from summer squash, yet the fruits are less watery and more buttery compared to either ancestral line. Two varieties, Cube of Butter and Butterstick, have earned such devoted followings that some say they are ‘The One’ among summer squash. Butterstick is so productive that one gardener recommended it for the zombie apocalypse, in part because the silver variegated leaves are well armed with spines. Unlike some yellow summer squash, Cube of Butter is never mushy or seedy, but the thin-skinned fruits do bruise easily so they must be handled with care.

Cooking with Yellow Courgettes

Just as you might want a few orange or yellow tomatoes to go with the red ones, yellow courgettes provide visual pop when paired with dark green courgettes or other green vegetables in summer dishes. Their firm texture helps them work well as a pasta substitute when cut into ribbons or zoodles, and they bring sunny yellow highlights to pickles and relishes. If you’re feeling ambitious, lemon courgette bread made with yellow courgettes is the perfect thing to make and share with friends and neighbours, and it freezes well, too.

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