Marrow day

Picked my first marrow this morning i have a few now getting to a decent size but this one was the biggest, unfortunately it has got scratched quite a bit by the leaves so i decided to pick it now for tea tonight, and let the smaller but better ones have more time and space, it was growing at ground level. I have started to train a shoot up off the ground and hopefully soon they will hang down out of the way of damage. I can't decide if I should have stopped it from spreading out in all directions and stopped it from fruiting at ground level and made it concentrate it's energy in to just one shoot sooner. I think i might try that approach with my second marrow which was planted about a month latter and see how it goes on.