I have been planting Burpee’s hybrid zucchini and butterbush squash for years. This year I decided to trellis the squash to conserve space. The zucchini was easy to tie up to the trellis when the vine was small but as the vine grew wider and stiffer it became more difficult. We had a relatively mild summer storm and this photo is of the top of one vine that had broken off of one of the plants. What broke off was about 1 ½” of the tip of the vine with about 2-3 small leaves and blossoms. I had hoped the plant would start a new branch but it eventually died. ( photo / image / picture from jbest123's Garden ) Both zucchini plants had a problem with the leaves in back buckling and falling forward over the tip of the vine and damaging the new blossoms. I had to be vigilant at removing them from that area. ( photo / image / picture from jbest123's Garden ) The clincher is, the plants were growing approximately the same place as last years non trellised squash. Last year the squash grew across the pathway and up against the next bed. This year the trellised squash leaves grew with in 3-4” of the adjoining bed, so I only saved 3-4” of space. ( photo / image / picture from jbest123's Garden ) The Butterbush squash were planted about 10” in front of the trellis and a dowel rod placed from the plant base to the trellis. It was easy to tie the vines to the dowels. ( photo / image / picture from jbest123's Garden ) It became obvious that the vines did not want to grow north although there was plenty of sun. In this photo you can see about four times the growth toward the south as there is to the north. I decided to let them go where they wanted and sacrificed the onions planted to the south of them. ( photo / image / picture from jbest123's Garden ) The vines are dieing back and the squash are ripening. There will be about 25 squash, enough for my wife and me but not very many to give away. This is the same area that the squash grew in last year in a conventional hill planting and I will be doing a comparison post about last years yield to this years SFG style of gardening ( photo / image / picture from jbest123's Garden )
That is a good idea with using a trellis to save room. I buy squash and I cook it in the microwave and then add what we like, brown sugar usually....I scoop it into muffin tins and freeze it. After it is frozen, I take it out and put it in my food sealer bags and put it back into the freezer. It is so nice to be able to take out enough for the two of us for a meal ...
