In article , ajr
writes
Good morning,

I bought a marrow plant last week, that I was going to plant this weekend.
Being relatively new to this gardening lark I assumed that a marrow would
grow in the same manner as a cucumber or tomato plant - I've since found out
that this is not the case and that a plant can easy cover a large area of
ground with its leaves - I was originally going to grow the marrow in a pot
on the patio!

I planted some potatoes in March and they have already grown to roughly the
same height as those grown last year. I was thinking of digging up a small
section of these and planting the marrow in their place.

Does anyone have any idea how large the potatoes are likely to be at the
moment - if there is a good chance of them being the size of 'new potatoes
I'll happily dig them up and eat them! - if not I would rather wait a couple
of weeks to give them a chance of growing a bit and putting the marrow in a
pot temporarily.

You should find some small tubers under your potato plants which you
could use as 'new' potatoes, though obviously they would grow larger if
they were left in.

Depending on where you are, you could still have a last frost or near
frost, so if you can keep the marrow plant going for a couple more
weeks, it will be safer to wait until then to put it out. That will also
give the potatoes time to grow on a bit. Marrow or courgette plants need
quite a bit of space, we give ours 5ft. clearance all round. If you only
want one or two marrows though rather than courgette production, you
could restrict the plant's growth to one or two fruiting stems, and the
stems to one marrow each. Or you could plant the marrow in the space
left by say, two lifted potatoes, then take potatoes out as the marrow
needs the space. It's a sort of Hobson's choice, but have a try anyway.
--
Alan & Joan Gould - North Lincs.