You might want to check over in the container gardening forum. NT

I am not sure about this question, "When a gardening catalog/website refers to how large the spread of a plant is, is this referring to the width of the plant? ". I suggest you contact the website which published the info.

For this question, "My other question is that since the melons and squash will have the
cage to climb up, is it really necessary to put them in slings as the fruit is maturing, so it doesn't break off the plant, or is this not necessary due the cage? ", I would answer: if the variety you anticipate to grow will be heavier than 6-7 ounces when mature, if I were you, I would consider slinging the fruit. An 18 pound water melon growing on one side of a cage, without a counter balance, or without securing, will topple it. If you anticipate harvesting mature summer squash when the fruits are small, don't worry about it.

My experience with melons is they will vine. In my zone, the vines can run up to 15 feet or more. I suppose you can train your vines to climb the cage. When the vine tops the highest part of your cage, you will have some decisions to make. If you have 4 or 5 good fruits started, you may want to consider trimming the leader, or the part of the vine growing most aggressively.

Of course, each gardeners experience varies, because we are in different zones, provide different levels of sunlight, and fertilize differently. Your experience may differ quite a bit even from someone else's in your same zone. I would suggest trying 3 or 4 this year, make some observations and notes, and use this knowledge to bolster your future efforts. Much of the knowledge available here on this forum can be individually obtained through one's own efforts, and through trial and error. This is one of the joys of gardening.

The varieties of squash that are bush types should probably not be caged. Yes the spread is the width. The 50 gallon containers sound good, but how many plants are you planning on putting in each? For bush types, you'll want to have at least 2 square feet of surface area in the container for each plant. For vining plants, you can have more.
I'm concerned for you about the choice of chicken wire for the cages. You'll have to be VERY vigilent in watching for fruit to make sure that the fruit is pushed out to the outside of the cage before it gets too big. Otherwise the fruit will grow inside the cage and chicken wire has such small openings, you won't be able to get the fruit out! Most people use Concrete Re-inforcement wire panels for cages. Ask at Home Depot or Lowes. They should have 4X8 foot panels for about $5-$6 each. Then cut to size for your cage. The holes in these panels are 6x6, so even when the fruit begins to form, you'll have a much better shot at catching it before it gets too big to feed through the holes.

Good luck!
Susan

Chicken wire: something you'll try then abandon for something better. Susan's re-mesh idea is good: I use it from HD, 4x7 for ~$8.00 hereabouts. It rusts. Not sure why you need a cage for bush-type squash. And the others, hope you are building a 6x6x6 cage or plan on using a whole piece of re-mesh.

Dan

Regarding did I try to post this on the container gardening subforum; yes I did, but it's been completely ignored. As far as what size containers will my melons be grown in; I basically plan to grow one melon plant per 5 gallon container. Somebody else who does container gardening, says they do this, and have had success with it.

There are my parts of gardening I enjoy, but I'm NOT a do-it-yourself type person; it's not something I'm good with, that's why I'm asking for help with how to build these containers. Trying to construct them by myself, I basically have no idea what I'm doing.

However I did have one question regarding melons. Supposedly they grow better if grown in groups rather then by themselves. So I'm wondering if it would be better to grow them in groups of 3 in the 5 gallon container, or would this end up doing more harm than good?

Not to be rude, but I don't know how big to make my cages (with the length, width, and height). That's one of the questions I asked, and didn't really get an answer to.Yes I know that I didn't provide the dimensions for the vining types of melons that aren't bush types. However it's because I can't find that information; I can't provide to you information I don't have.

From my experience with vines you really don't need to train them I think. If you provide them something to climb on, won't they just latch onto it?

I've tried to ask the seed catalog companies who provide the seeds, what the dimensions of the plants are for the melons, the honeydew (Honey Pearl) and cantaloupe (Tasty Bites). They said they don't want to mislead customers, because how big it gets is subjective; it depends on so many factors......how good the soil is, how warm it is, how well fertilized the plant is, etc.

Somebody said with traditional vining types, the vines can get very long. What determines how big I need to make the cage? Is it the length of the vines, or the height of the plant itself, or is it a combination of both of these factors? That is to say if the vine length of a melon plant will reach 15', then should I make the cage 15' high? This is just hypothetical.

How big would I need to ask them to cut it to size? I really suck with math, and I don't know what the dimensions of the plants I'm growing will be. Typically how large with the height, width, and vine length do honeydew and cantaloupe melons get? I'm asking because I cannot find this information via the internet.

I don't know how big the vines will get. However I do know with container gardening, that plants are typically smaller, and whatever you harvest will be slightly smaller; it's just the nature of container gardening.

So hypothetically, even if the melon plants are well fertilized, grown in good soil, well watered, etc.....are the vines of the plant just going to be smaller due to the fact that plant is grown in a container? By the vines and plant being smaller, I mean they'll be smaller in general in comparison to if they were grown via the 'conventional method' that is to say, in a plot in the ground in hills.

As others have said, poultry netting is not usable for making any sort of cages or trellis out of.

Bush squash varieties are not caged. They won't grow in a cage and the branches will just break. They stand on their own and most are 3 to 4' feet in diameter (wide). They are grown 1 plant to a container that small (5 gallons) and the container will have to be staked or tied off to keep it from falling over from the weight of the plant.

Same with melons - 1 plant to a container for best results although you can do 2. You will then have 2 vines approximately 6 to 8' long to control.

But they don't use a "cage". They don't climb on their own and work best if just allowed to crawl along the ground or deck. They must be tied up to any support and the melons will need slings or they will fall off. The support is usually no more that 4 feet tall and the vine just curls all over it so no, nothing 8" tall is needed. Melons are not really a good container plant as they require a lot of extra work. Some sort of fence or string support net is needed on 2 or 3 sides of the container or as a tent over the container but not a cage. I posted a picture of one in the other discussion here about supporting melons and there are many other pictures of melon supports available on the web.

If you are going to do container gardening then you really need to limit yourself to plants bred for growing in containers, at least until you get some experience and knowledge. And there are many of them available.

Dave

I agree that 5 gal are too small, not only for top-heaviness but for root volume as well. I use nursery 15-gal and my zuke and summer squash don't do as well as in the ground - but that's OK as we don't eat all that much.

I trellis several types of melons and winter squash in the ground. They grow up their trellis on their own. Any non-midget melon will need to be supported and for the life of me I have zero clue how all that weight will be supported by a 5-gallon container. A 25-gal nursery container maybe... The center of gravity will be 3x higher than the 5-gal container height and the first puff of the tiniest breeze will make you unhappy.

wrt vine length: if a vine gets 15 feet long (it almost certainly will not in a container, esp a 5-gal), you need to accommodate 15 feet. Maybe that's two vines wrapped twice on a 7-foot re-mesh, but what's that going to do to your air circulation? Sounds like a high-energy expenditure experiment.

Dan

I agree with previous posters; chicken wire is NOT going to provide sufficient space within each square. Use concrete remesh, like others have suggested.

Your best bet as to figuring out how much material you need is to actually build one cage, figure out how much you used for the one, and multiple by how many more you need to make. Without knowing exactly what kind of cages you plan to build or the size of the containers (by which I mean dimensions, not volume) or what they look like (5 gallon cube vs. 5 gallon cylinder), no one will really be able to give you any idea of how to help you build what you want.

I have been thinking about your challenges and propose the following as a basis for a solution.

This solution takes a modular, expandable, shared growth approach.
Any container and cage could grow any plant, would not be plant specific, giving you more flexibility.
A plant with a larger habit, like a melon, could wander onto other cages. I have shown this in the design on the container with an "M". I have indicated how a squash might grow with an "S". Obviously, keeping adequate airflow is important, so no over crowding.
The cage is made out of CRW, is 5 feet tall, and always has its edges fit inside the container. Always. This is critical, even if the container is square. Having the edge fit inside of the container wall will ensure more stability.

If you try to bend CRW, you will weaken it if you force it into right angles, or 90 degree bends. I have no scientific proof, just based on experience (painful experiences). Based on this observation from experience, the cages must be maintained in round or circular shapes, even if they are placed in rectangular or square containers.

This is also critical: no matter the size of shape of the container or the cage, or how they are attached, you must ensure they can withstand the force of wind and the force of the weight of the vegetables on them. To ensure maximum forces can be withstood, a tie-down or staking arrangement will have to be used. My design shows two pieces of 90 degree rebar (heavier thickness than the CRW for the cage) shoved into the ground and also butted against a horizonal piece of rebar, running longways, snaked through the set of cages.

If you consider the likely forces, side to side, front to back, my design can resist most. The cages should be touching to ensure toppling forces are opposed most effectively.

If your containers are not on the ground and you cannot use rebar as stakes, then you will have to figure out some other way to ensure these containers with cages on top of them will not topple when a breeze blows. Since there are three together, and thoeretically could be more, with potentially many leaves, the total affect is like a wall or a sail which could capture the wind and suffer terrible damage it not staked properly.

Disclaimer: I garden in the ground. This is a basis for a hypothetical solution. Your experiences could turn out different than I have proposed. These are my opinions only. I am a novice.

kawaiineko_gardener there are lots of pictures of melon trellises on Google Images. Doing a simply Google Search for Melon Trellis will turn up lots of ways to build your own.

If you do a YouTube Search for Melon Trellis and Vertical Melon you will find lots of videos. Below is a video of a Melon Trellis that may give you some ideas.

Here is a link that might be useful: I've Got Melons!! - growing melons vertically

Kawaiineko, do you know Guavalane? Guavalane posted some great pictures on another thread of a horizontal trellis that a man was using to grow big winter melons and gourds on. It's on this thread.

I wanted more info to build one like it and would have just emailed Guavalane but an email addy is not connected with that account, so I could only post in the thread.

Here is a link that might be useful: Winter melon thread, two sets trellis pix halfway down.