PlantSowGrow
How to grow Marrow (Long Green Bush)
Cucurbita pepo
🥕 Vegetable
🌱 Grown each year
Big, striped green marrows for stuffing, soups and chutney — and courgettes too if you pick them small. A compact bush, not a trailer.
At a glance: Sow late April to mid May, harvest from late June.
When to sow, plant and harvest
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Sow outdoors
Harvest
Timed for a typical UK garden (last frost mid-April). The app uses your own town's frost dates.
Growing Marrow (Long Green Bush): what it needs
- Light
- Full sun · 6+ hours a day
- Watering
- Water generously at the base, never over the leaves
- Soil
- Fertile, well-drained soil
- Spacing
- 90 cm
- In pots
- Best in the ground
- Feeding
- A general feed before sowing or planting
- Harvest
- About 75 days from sowing
- Hardiness
- USDA zones 3–9
- Difficulty
- Easy
Step by step
- Late April – mid May · 2 weeks after the last spring frost
Sow Seeds Outdoors
Sow thinly in drills where they are to grow. Sow seeds on their edge, 2 cm deep.
- 5–10 days after “Sow Seeds Indoors” · Early May
Check Germination
Seedlings should appear in 5–10 days. If sown outdoors, thin to 90 cm apart when big enough to handle.
- 55–76 days after “Plant Out” · Late June – mid July
Start Harvesting
Cut marrows at 25–30 cm for eating fresh. Leave one or two to ripen fully for storing — the skin hardens.
- 70–100 days after “Start Harvesting” · Early September – early October
Finish and Clear
Cut the last marrows before the first frost and store ripe ones somewhere cool and dry for up to two months.
