My friend really loved zucchini, clipping and saving up lots of recipes in her file for the day when she would have her own fresh garden produce. When she finally bought her first house, the biggest selling point was a dedicated area in the yard for vegetable gardening. So when spring finally rolled around, she knew exactly what she wanted to harvest and picked up her starters from the nursery accordingly.

But she was a real newbie who had this silly romantic notion about doing all this on her own. So, thinking that she would get one zucchini from one plant, and knowing how many recipes she wanted to try, she went and bought...50 plants.

That fall, she ran out of friends before she ran out of zucchini to give away! True story.

Oh my goodness! I can only imagine how much zucchini 50 plants would produce! Sounds like that children's story, Strega Nona and the Magic Pasta Pot.

LOL! Love that story adriannemb ;-)

Because I cold compost, I have a lot of 'volunteers' from the kitchen scraps. This spring I top dressed the raised veg garden with the said compost. You guessed it, The garden was full of NOID little plants by the end of spring. At first I thought they might be cucumbers, but no such luck, LOL. Turns out they are some kind of trailing squash, though there are not flowers or fruit yet. I keep going over and over what kind of squash I ate over fall or winter that might have made it's way into the compost. Still a mystery until it sets fruit!!! ;-D
CMK

Enjoy your pumpkins newbiehavinfun! Probably most gardeners have a similar story of plants gone wild!

Because I love home grown tomatoes so much I don't seem to learn by experience and have repeated my 'too many tomato plants' mistakes several times! When we bought our first house and I had my first 'real' veggie garden I bought 2 flats of a dozen each indeterminate tomato plants never realizing how much space they'd take, that they needed staking, or how much they'd produce. I learned one can freeze tomatoes whole and deal with them later.

I did it again in another garden so, once again, had tomatoes to spare. There were so many that some of the cherry tomatoes fell to the ground and seeded. The next year I had seedling tomato plants coming up throughout the garden and a huge crop of Colorado potato beetles that found them. I picked zillions of beetles hoping to save a few of the strongest plants but finally gave up and threw all the plants and beetles in the garbage.

Fast forward to this property where we can have frost at any time of the year so I planted a dozen cherry and determinate tomato plants in large pots on the deck. The frost didn't get them but the squirrel did. Just when they were getting ripe he picked every tomato and left the skins and seeds on the deck railing for me to clean up! If I tried to chase him off he chattered angrily at me!

I've given up on growing tomatoes, easier to buy them at the farmers' market!

I've never bothered growing zucchini as there are always people who want to give it away!

That's why it is wise to not the leave the car windows open at church!

LOL @ plantmaven. Got to remember that trick!