In article , Scott L. Hadley
writes
One of the reasons I love this ng, beyond furthering my gardening education,
is the added benefit of never knowing when I will turn up one of these
little treasures. But at risk of appearing naive, I wonder if you can tell
me about this new use (new to me) of the word marrow. Help this silly guy in
the States, please(?) What is it---Best I can come up with is the vegetable
known here as squash.Thanks in advance

Good point Scott. In this context, the word 'marrow' is one of those
quaint English language terms used mainly by UK gardeners to describe an
equally quaint vegetable in the cucurbita family. More correctly its
name is Vegetable Marrow, but the first part of that term is seldom
used. In US you are probably right in thinking of it as a variety of
squash, though that could be a bit misleading according to what you
believe a marrow or a squash to be.

Chambers English Dictionary describes Vegetable Marrow as a variety of
pumpkin (or akee fruit) "cooked as a vegetable". CED also refers to a
'Marrow-Squash'. Dr.W.E.Shewell in his book 'The Complete Vegetable
Grower' says "It is a member, of course, of what may be called the
cucumber family .... most delicious eaten half grown .... etc." Prof.
Lawrence D.Hills in his book 'Grow your own Fruit and Vegetables' likens
marrows to pumpkins but advises growers that the traditional monster
marrow is very poor value for space. Hills also refers to 'smaller
marrows' such as courgettes, cocozelles, Vegetable Spaghetti and
ornamental gourds. RHS Enc. of Gardening associated marrows or vegetable
marrows with summer squashes and suggests that courgettes are marrows
harvested young.

I personally think of a marrow as an overgrown courgette (zucchini),
or like RHS one could see a courgette as an immature marrow. If a huge
vegetable marrow is actually required (mainly for show or show-off
purposes) varieties like Green Bush are better than overgrown
courgettes/zucchinis which are a superb vegetable if harvested and used
very small and young.
--
Alan & Joan Gould - North Lincs.