Kitchen Garden Forum

I ask because at the village horticultural show I attended today there was a class for giant marrows and both exhibits looked to me like jumbo courgettes the growers had found on their plants after returning from a fortnight's holiday
I've always been under the impression that correctly speaking, marrows, although being of the same family were differentiated by their recognisable cream stripes. When buying commercial seed packets you buy courgettes or marrows.
Is there any strict rule about this? Or do giant courgettes just become unofficial marrows when they reach a certain embarrassingly large size and you have no options left but to stuff and bake them lol:

Primrose, there was quite a lengthy discussion on this subject on this forum a few years ago. I think it was OH (but I may be wrong) who wrote that a courgette becomes a marrow when the seeds inside become hard which you can test by biting them.
The vegetable judge at our village show avowed that he could tell a marrow from an overgrown courgette, even without the "stripe test" or biting the seeds, but I don't know how!
We have, in past years, grown marrows without stripes, by the way.

Monika. I would be interested to know what you do with your marrows, apart from stuffing and baking them. I have picked my first accidental marrow today which had grown cunningly hidden under a huge courgette leaf. We are currently trying the current Kitchen Garden courgette fritters recipe this evening with our courgette surplus, so I think the accidental marrow will have to wait. One good thing about them, at least they do store which reduces the pressure to use them immediately.

Primrose, this year is the first year that we have not grown any marrows, just three plants of courgette, but when we did, it was really just to put in the village show! We picked the best looking (not the largest!) to exhibit and gave away all the rest at the show. I was always amazed how people snapped them up - I have no idea what they did with them.

I am now furiously picking the courgettes to stop them growing too large. Any we can't use immediately, I chop up or slice and freeze them for soups.
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If it has a discernible hollow core to it, with seeds, then I would class that as a marrow, in my view. Many modern varieties of courgette set fruits without the need for pollination. This results in seedless fruits, uniformly solid throughout. Call me old fashioned, but I also think of a marrow as having stripes, too, but then there are varieties with yellow skins, or marked in other ways. I don't think it would be unreasonable of show judges to request that the grower state which variety they exhibiting so that it can be cross-checked. It was all so much easier in the days when I grew my first marrow, some forty-odd years ago. No-one had even heard of a courgette back then, not in my part of the world, anyway.

I wonder if the person who first named the courgette plant was rather sadistic, or maybe he didn't realize what stress he was going to cause, with what to do with them all.

Dear OH. I couldn't help noticing what time you posted this morning. You are certainly an early riser! Do you sneak out when everyone is still asleep to leave little parcels of your surplus runner beans on your neighbours' doorsteps?

Dear Primrose, all joking apart, i do indeed deliver whole boxes of mixed veg to some of my favourite people, and yes, this is before 6am.

Gets the tongues waggling when i'm seen coming out of someones driveway at 5.30am in the morning...

hopefully still not wearing your PJ's

When you reach a certain age you have to start living a little dangerously to remind yourself you're still alive,

Primrose - pyjama's & socks!

Westi

Westi

OH is known for just wearing his socks as he likes going commando

Regards

Arnie

I do have to confess to not owning any pyjamas, but i do have socks.

oldherbaceous wrote:I do have to confess to not owning any pyjamas, but i do have socks.

As we well remember!

OH. Don,t tell us you were that Naked Hiker who featured in a TV programme some months ago,

I,m trying to remind myself that this thread was supposed to be about the length and size of courgettes