Are you sure it is a patty pan squash and not some sort of winter squash? I have NEVER seen one reach seven feet and I certainly haven't seen them with more than one vine.

Thanks for the response. The only other squash I planted, and on another hill, was "Black Beauty". I had to trash that plant, so there's a possibility they were mixed up. The last possibility is that there was a volunteer coming out of my homemade compost. That too was probably some variety of summer squash - crookneck yellow likely.

Would any of those possibilities explain why the flowers aren't opening?

My experience with patty pan is that they are more bush-like than vine-like. You can try to hand pollinate it yourself with some of the male pollen and a Q-tip to see if the female blossum is fertile or sterile (force open the blossum). Let us know if a fruit appears.

Male blossoms were closed. I cut one off yesterday and tried to open it. What was inside was the beginning of a flower but didn't look like anything I've seen before. My assumption is that it was some kind of squash (acorn, probably) from the compost that volunteered next to my planted squash, my planted squash seed never germinated, and I was thrown off this whole time. I don't have the space for it, so I've pulled it for the compost and dropped in two new seeds...

Thanks for the responses. Lesson here for me - let my compost cook longer (and I've already started keeping squash seeds out anyway), and patty pan should typically bush out, not vine.