A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Anyone else grow english vegetable marrows?

Anyone else on here grows english vegetable marrows?

For anyone that hasn't seen them before, they are somewhat similar to zucchini, but some can grow to an immense size (world record is ~137 lbs.) They are pretty common in the UK, but less common in the USA. The cullinary varieties get about as large as a zucchini. Most marrows grow on vines, but they do have some bush varieties. Generally, most marrows are striped, but many of the really large ones are solid green. I prefer eating them to zucchini. If you cut them when they are under a 1 ft. long they have soft skin and less watery than zucchini. If you let them get big, then they have hard skin. You can still eat them, but then they tend to get very watery and lose flavor. I've been able to keep them up to 7 months. They are considered an autumn squash, and don't keep as long as the winter squash, but longer than the summer squash. Last year I sent out messages on various garden sites giving away free marrow seeds. Depending on how many seeds I save this year, I'll probably do the same thing. Come this fall, I'll probably post on this site an offer for free marrow seeds. I think they are fun, because you can eat most of them, but you can have some fun and let a few get big on the vine. It's too bad that more people in the USA don't grow them.


Here is a picture of some of the small varieties I grew last year for food



Picture of me holding a 30+ pound marrow I grew last year



Picture of how large they can get. Last year the world record was broke in the UK at 137 lbs.

Gosh I hope you have seed this year, I would love to try one of those babies. How much space do they need in the garden? mine is quite small.

They can get rather large. My garden is about 100 ft. long, and it's common for the large ones to get at least half that length. You can coax them to go around in circles, and you can even get them to grow up sunflowers and corn.

I was able to grow a 10+ lbs. marrow hanging on my corn stalks. If you look closely at the picture below, you can see the marrow leaves just below the 10 ft. red amaranth plant. There was a 10+ lbs marrow hanging from one of the corn stalks.


If you want small varieties, I suggest trying eseeds.com. They carry all the international brands such as unwins, suttons, Thompson & morgan. I suggest typing in marrow in the search box. If you click vegetable and then marrow, then they don't all show up in the list. I've tried them all, and they are all pretty good.


I have some more information on a informational webpage I'm putting together on giant plants. Some of the links don't work, because they are from my old site, and not updated.

http://home.comcast.net/~sunflower_info/Marrows_files/Marrows3.html

Wow ! This is the most amazing vegetable I've heard of- ever !
Thanks for sharing this !

Those are awesome! Would love to let the kids grow those! I bet they would also make unique jack-o-lanterns come Halloween!

I've never tried to turn them into jack-o-lanterns before. I'm not sure how well they keep when cut up.

I hope I will have some seeds this year to give out free. I'm trying really hard to get these bumpy marrows called crocodile marrows. I've failed to get any marrows in previous years. They always seem to rot before getting to full size.
Here is a pic of a crocodile marrow



I was looking arond on the web today for giant marrow seeds and I came across this picture. Pretty impressive! Runner Beans behind him are pretty nice as well.

Well just seeing the ones you have on the counter had me thinking they would be great for carving. They really do not have to hold up but for a few days to a week or so.

I am going to look around here for seeds as well but I would like it if you kept me in mind if you harvest some this year.

Whew!!!!!!!
Those things are awesome, probably not an option for me in my little 10X14 garden