Monster zucchini

We decided to plant a garden this year, although I was a little hesitant. I have never been able to make ANYTHING grow (I have killed bamboo twice - you aren't supposed to be able to kill that!!) so I didn't have a very positive attitude about it, but decided it was worth a try. We started small and cleared out a little corner in the backyard and then went to Home Depot to decide what to plant. We thought we would have better luck with starters rather than try to plant seeds. After about an hour at Home Depot we came home with about 5 zucchini,3 tomato, 3 cucumber, and 3 strawberry plants. After planting those we carefully watered and fed them all with Miracle Gro as directed. Two days after planting we lost the strawberries (not really sure what happened, they just dried up), one tomato plant, and the zucchini looked a little unhealthy. So, we thought we would try again but this time we went to a nursery with hopes of getting healthier plants. I was determined that it was going to work this time and we once again left with 5 zucchini, 3 tomato, 3 cucumber, and added 3 yellow squash plants. When we got home we pulled up the obviously dead plants but left the zucchini in place with high hopes that we could nurse them back to health. Once again, we lost everything except 1 tomato and all the zucchini plants. The yellow squash also seemed to have survived. Now fast forward about 4 weeks and our zucchini plants are taking over! Our lonely tomato plant has about 4 tomatoes on it and is doing fairly well but holy moly - the zucchini is something else! I have never seen such big zucchini leaves and have been looking forward to seeing how much we end up with. Well, yesterday I was outside with the boys watering the plants and started poking around in the leaves. Because we planted the plants in such close proximity to each other (not something we will do again) it is kind of like a jungle in that little corner. As I'm poking around I see a dark green funny looking leaf so I bend a little closer and much to my surprise I see the BIGGEST zucchini I've ever seen. I am so amazed at what has grown and how quickly it came up. It is about a foot long, 6-9 inches around at the base, and weighs 4-5 lbs. Check out the pictures! The boys think it is so awesome, as do I since I have never grown anything edible before. YIPPEE! I can't wait to see what continues to grow!