The Modern Victory Garden

Hi all, I'm new here, so pardon me if this is an old topic: growing squash vertically.  I love squash and zucchini so I always grow it, but the plants always consume a big chunk of space in my raised beds.   But anyone who grows these things knows that they consist of a single vine, with all the fruits appearing on the end of the vine.  So I went about researching ways to get the vine off the ground, hoping to find a solution that would consume less space---and boy did I ever.  I am trying it for the first time this season, but it looks really promising.  Since now is the time when we're thinking about our curcurbit starts here in the Pacific Northwest, I thought that I would share what I found:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogPfOrJM0Ho

Skip to about 5:30 for the vertical zucchini.  The entire (short) video is enlightening for the way that he trims and prunes--I think I'm going to use his methods on my tomato plants this year, too.

Thanks for sharing that JamesG!   I have pruned and staked tomatoes like he shows but was not as aggressive about stripping the lower leaves as he does.   I think it makes some sense to do as he shows as disease is definitely an issue in the older leaves of the plant.   Even though I cage my tomatoes I do pluck out the suckers to keep the growth confined to only a few leaders per plant.    I am not always vigilant about that though and I have had years where the plants get far bushier than I intended them to be.   I think this year I will follow his lead and try and be more vigilant and also make it a habit to just strip the lower leaves of the indeterminate plants.   Of course that is not appropriate with the determinate varieties as they don't continue to put on new top growth due to their bushing characteristic that they are bred to provide.    On the zucchinni, I have seen them grown on trellis before but not staked and stripped like that.   It makes an awful lot of sense though knowing how the plant produces and grows. 

All very true, kitsap.  We have to be a lot more diligent with tomatoes in this climate.  Speaking of which, I enjoyed reading through your archives, and I was wondering if you noticed less tomato diseases in 2010 from your staggered tomato planting, as compared to 2009 when you had them planted side-by-side.  I had a single long row of tomatoes last year, but half of them fell victim to blight.  This year I was planning to plant them in raised beds, side-by-side as you did in 2009, but I am now wondering if that would be foolish.

My plants definitely had less disease in 2010 which I attribute to the more roomy spacing.   I still did not get a very good harvest amount in 2010 though - due to the very cool summer we had.   I hope luck is with me in 2011 and we get a summer that is more abundant in heat and sunshine.