Garden in review: Part 3

This is my final post on our garden. (I promise!) Surely I'm boring some of you by now. Thank you for hanging in there with me.

Back garden

ZUCCHINI. [2 hills, 4-6 plants per hill] There's never a short supply of zucchini. We should have thinned these plants once they got going because these always get a bit out of control. They were all ready in mid-August. I still have frozen zucchini in my freezer from last year so I didn't freeze any more this year. We gave a lot away, fried some up, and made zucchini bread a few times.
For next year: thin, get some good zucchini recipes.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH. [2 hills, 4-6 plants per hill] There's a restaurant in town that makes an amazing Butternut Squash Lasagna. Another place makes some Butternut Squash Ravioli that makes my mouth water to even think of it. I would pay serious money to get those recipes. I've tried to recreate those dishes many times in my own kitchen but can never get it quite right. This past year, though, I made a recipe with ravioli, walnuts, butternut squash, sage, and cheese (romano?), and it was *nearly* as good. We have a few growing out there now... and I'm excited to experiment more with this yummy squash.

WHITE PUMPKINS. [1 1/2 hills, 4-6 plants per hill] This gave us three white pumpkins, and I like these. They're pretty. Smaller than a normal pumpkin.

MINIATURE PUMPKINS. [2 hills, 4-6 plants per hill] These gave us a bunch of little pumpkins. Mostly orange, some yellowish. Very cute. The kids love these, as do I. They're so perfectly shaped. And great little fillers for the window box.

GOURDS. [The packet we got was a Mexican Hat Squash, we think. 2 hills, 4-6 plants per hill] These aren't my favorite. And they were very prolific, covering our back garden. But they are good fillers for decorating.
Next year: none. Too ugly.

PUMPKINS. [2 1/2 hills, 4-6 plants per hill] We got about 12 pumpkins from these hills. A couple of them are pretty big, and it's been fun having our own pumpkin patch in the back yard. The kids loved watching their progress.

This was the first time we've planted anything on the back portion of our yard. It was Mark's great idea to utilize that space for pumpkins and squash. My only complaint? Our pumpkin patch was smack dab next to the boys' dirt pile with all their Tonka trucks. Needless to say, that dirt pile was covered with pumpkin vines early on and the boys weren't able to utilize that play area. We'll figure something out for next year.