Early Harvest: Summer & Winter Squash

It's been a weird (unusually dry and warm) summer in the garden, which I assume is the reason that several of my winter squash reached their full color and size before most of the summer squash reached edible size. 

 

I expect my plants to be a little idiosyncratic and not always optimized for the climate I'm in: I focus on growing mid-19th century and earlier heritage varieties, because that's what I want to cook with. For instance, my only pumpkin to produce fruit last year (a Connecticut Field pumpkin) was still green when I had to clear my plot. It ripened off the vine, and I ended up saving seeds from it. This year, two of its four offspring had produced orange pumpkins by early September (one of the other two is larger, but dark green, and the fourth plant still only has a tiny fruit on it).

First haul of squash from the garden: two pumpkins, two Boston Marrow (winter) squash and a yellow crook-neck (summer) squash.