In April we suggested readers grow our free seeds of marrow ‘Long Green Bush’ for our competition. Then we opened it up to all, which rather confused the issue as the free KG LGB seeds, as I will now call them, were never going to compete with larger thoroughbred varieties and those grown from seed saved by exhibitors. So our wonderful sponsor Mr Fothergill’s said they would stump up more prizes so we could have a Whopper category (open to all sections) and the LGB category for those grown from our free seeds.
We picked the three winners of the whoppers category easily but then we had to start contacting those lower down the rankings to see if they had grown our free LGB. The race was now on.
Barry from Newark was looking strong up front. Then we had Stephen from Guernsey but, oh no, what a shame – he fell at the first with a marrow other than LGB.
No ladies in the running, asked my colleague? No, I said, not as yet, but anything can happen in a marrow race. However, soon the marrows rolled by the wayside as more LGBs were confirmed as not LGBs and suddenly we were looking even further down the rankings to find our prize winners. The Marrow Stakes is a tough race and inevitably we had more casualties including Terry from Nuneaton with his lookalike LGB but sadly squashed out of the competition. Then coming up from the rear was our first lady marrow grower –Sam from Stamford. Come on Sam, you can do it!
Then hurrah, we had confirmation of a ‘Long Green Bush’ grown from our free seeds. Ranking ninth but actually currently second (are you keeping up with this?) was Craig from Milton Bryan with his 52cm-long LGB. He could hold second place but it depended if Martin from Stoke (eighth) could come up on the outside on the home straight with another LGB. I feared Roger Rout (seventh) could pip both at the post but he was a rank outsider with his yellow and green stripy number, so Rout was out, leaving Sam from Stamford squeezing into the rankings with her 55cm long LGB. But was it an LGB? Only time would tell.