CathInfo.com

How is your garden this year? What are you growing? Any big successes to share or disappointments? 

It’s been an interesting year for our garden. It seems like everything came on slow and was very slow to ripen. Our tomatoes are JUST starting to ripen, about a month later than usual. But they are plenty! 

It’s been a great year for peppers here, but we’ve had a hard time with carrots. 

Other veggies we have growing are cucuмbers, green beans, eggplant, beets, watermelon, corn, pumpkins and candy roaster squash. 

The fall garden is going in soon with a variety of brassicas and greens. 

We’ve been making lots of pickles and will be soon canning a lot of green beans and beets. We like to freeze sauce, diced tomatoes and peppers, and we freeze dry the salsa. 

The candy roaster squash is an excellent keeper. A couple weeks ago we used up the last of last years crop. It gets sweeter the longer it stores so it was wonderfully sweet. 

I wasn't feeling up to a big garden this year so all I planted was potatoes and jerusalem artichokes ( sunchokes) and just let them go.
Harvesting, potatoes now -they are all medium to small. No real large ones like I had in past years, but like I said I didn't fuss with them much. Want to try those candy roaster squash for next year!

I wasn’t up to all the digging, hoeing, etc. this year. (Arthritis) But I do have a nice supply of fresh dandelion greens, chives, zucchini and yellow squash, and several pumpkins from last year are growing.  The crab apple tree is looking like I’ll get some applesauce or pie in September.  I had lots of wild blueberries earlier, but not many blackberries or raspberries.  
Last week I found a hybrid squash.  It was about 18” long and zucchini shaped.  The outside was dark green with orange undertones.  I cut it open to find a rather fibrous light orange flesh that tasted like a zucchini with a touch of pumpkin.  Obviously, the zucchini and pumpkin were cross pollinated.  I cooked it down well and canned two jars.  I have a number of slices marinating in leftover pickle juice, and pan fried a half dozen thin slices to eat as is.  
I set aside some seeds to see if they’ll grow anything next year.  It could be that they’re sterile or will only grow a stem and leaves, no squash.
I’ll use them if any more appear, but I don’t recommend them because they’re too fibrous.  Possibly, they’re a natural regulator for those with constipation!  
A friend (RIP) many years ago, grew something similar in her compost pile, a combination cucuмber and pumpkin.  It was also fibrous, tasted slightly of pumpkin, and had the consistency of a tough, but watery cucuмber with huge seeds.  If I recall, she fed it to the chickens.  It was too tough and had a bitter aftertaste, not fit for human consumption unless starving.
I can’t decide whether to call mine a zuchin or a pumkini.  Not delicious, but certainly edible if well cooked and in something, sauce, soup, stew, or pumkini muffins!  
My friend’s was a cucuмkin or a pumcuмber!  

Anyone else ever find a surprise in their garden?