State of the Garden Address

My garden this summer is definitely not up to par. For one thing, we're letting the ground lie fallow this year and I did all my planting in containers. A bigger factor than that, however, is the crappy weather we've had. In the 26 years we've lived in Santa Rosa, CA, we've never had this little sun.

Last year at this time I was dealing with mountains of zucchini and crookneck squash. This year, we haven't even grown enough to eat our fill, let alone sneak it onto the neighbors' porches.

So, I was thrilled when Rob did some weeding and uncovered a volunteer:

We just got our first veggie off of it yesterday, and it appears to be a weird hybrid of a zephyr squash and a zucchini:

Don't know what it was, but it tasted as good as any other summer squash.

The tomatoes took their sweet old time, but now they're the only thing we're getting in excess:

Ever heard of growing pumpkins in a container? Me neither, but I'm doing it. I found out about these containers called Smart Pots that are apparently the #1 choice of pot growers everywhere because of their high-yield results due to air-pruning. This is a 25-gallon Smart-Pot, and here are the two pumpkins growing on it:

I can't remember what variety I planted but it was a type that's not supposed to get very big, since I really wasn't sure if even small ones would grow very well.