What can you make with one pumpkin and five tomatoes? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I don't know what the hell is happening in my garden. My green pepper and tomato plants look great, but I've gotten very few green peppers and even fewer tomatoes. My pumpkin vines are dying off and I dont know why- they've gotten enough water and there is no mildew that I can see. I'm supposed to make ketchup! And when I've made enough of that I'm supposed to have so many tomatoes that I can make canned tomatoes! I should have frozen enough baggies of green peppers that will last me through winter but instead I have five. Five. Small. Baggies. My neighbor was nice enough to drop of a few tomatoes for me and my other neighbor is bragging about how amazing his tomato crop is. Right now, I should be bitching about how I have so many tomatoes I don't know what to do, but instead I'm bitching because I don't have any tomatoes to do anything with.

Maybe my garden soil is tired. I 'til in good compost every fall and rotate my garden plantings every spring, but maybe it's not enough. Then again, all the plants look beautiful, they just aren't putting out (that's right: putting out).

Once, when we were watching The Sopranos, Tony was growing beautiful Roma tomatoes but he had them staked in such a way that they grew on a lattice. Yes, I realize I'm attempting to figure out what's wrong with my tomatoes by referencing Tony Soprano. But perhaps that is the answer- my plants get so large that they topple over the cages and the vines grow so long that I have to add extra cages between and around the plant. Maybe they would bear more fruit if I had a set-up like my fictional friend Tony.

On a happier note, I'm glad to report that when I planted my pumpkins and butternut squash that I did, indeed, mix up the seeds. Where I thought I had planted pumpkins I had planted squash and vice versa. The butternut squash looks great (right now I'm bitter enough to say "probably not for long") and I even have little butternuts coming!