The summer after graduating college, when I was dating Adam but conversations about marriage and moving to the country had not even begun, my good friend and sorority roommate, Anne, sent me this card.

She wrote on the inside, “I don’t know why, but this made me think of you!”

Well Anne, you should probably go get a lottery ticket or something because you pretty much nailed it in predicting the future. “My garden kicks ass” crossed my mind just a day before finding her card when I was going through old photos.

Our tomato plants are huge. They come up to my chin are overflowing with tomatoes that are turning red everyday.

Carrots are coming in thick. They look and taste amazing.

The amount of beans and peas we have gotten from our plants is beginning to flirt with ridiculous.

Our lettuce and kale are still booming providing me with awesome salads for lunch each day.

The garlic we planted last spring has spent the last month drying in the garage and is finally ready for cooking… and the cloves taste great!

My brother has been converted to a believer in beets thanks to the super sweet and incredibly pink beets from the garden.

Our fall crops, like spinach, Swiss chard, and more carrots and beets, are beginning to sprout to help extend our harvest this season.

Even the dahlias and wildflowers I planted in one of the garden beds to help attract bee’s are not just doing their job, but also look beautiful.

But, what really has blown me away are the spaghetti squash.

Spaghetti Squash was a newbie to the garden this year so I wasn’t sure what to expect. We began the seeds inside this spring and transplanted five plants to a garden bed in mid-May. It was exciting to watch the squash grow; starting as blossoms, then small, green globes becoming large and yellow as the weeks wore on.

However, their growth wasn’t perfect. Some of the squash would develop a thick, strong skin and would be firm, which you want when growing spaghetti squash. But others were squishy or wrinkled. Some just looked dead. With the help of one of Adam’s friends who is an entomologist, we learned that some of the plants had become invested with an immature squash bug.

These bugs live in colonies and inject squash and melon vines with a toxic substance. This causes the vines to dry and turn black making it impossible for nutrients to get the squash, if any squash even develop.

Fortunately, not all of the plants got infested with these gross little bugs and we managed to get quite a few perfect spaghetti squashes (Squashes? Is that the plural of squash…? Sounds so weird.)

So perfect, in fact, that I could help but beam with a little pride when I brought a couple into the house and began to prep them for dinner. And, as I dug a fork into the squash after it roasted in the oven and it separated into it’s signature, golden stands that give it it’s unique name, I smiled and thought, “I grew this!”

Preparing spaghetti squash is super easy. The hardest part of preparing the squash happens to be step one… cutting the dang thing in half. The skin is relatively thick and even with your best kitchen knife, this is challenging. Just go slow, be patient and keep your fingers safe.

Once split in half, scoop out the seeds and coat the insides with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Place halves, cut sides up, on a roasting or baking sheet. Put into a 375 degree oven for one hour or until the flesh is tender.

When cool enough to handle (I still wear an oven mit), scrape with a fork and remove the strands.

I keep it pretty basic with a little butter, parm, red pepper flakes and chopped parsley. But there are tons of super creative ways to dress spaghetti squash up and make it your own all over Pinterest.

You will see a prevalence of spaghetti squash at the grocery store this time of year so give it a try!