I'm pretty sure, from unfortunately dim memories from last year, that to do that you will need one of the few "vining" varieties of zucchini. Most of them are aggressively spreading bushy plants that will want to sprawl over 3 sq. ft. or so all to themselves. I found the variety name I remember being mentioned most often, Zucchino Rampicante. There's lots of information in the thread below, in one of the other garden web areas.

Here is a link that might be useful: Zucchini thread

Yes, you'll need a vining variety. I would suggest using cattle panels or concrete reinforcement mesh for support. I do this with cucumbers and it works well.

Hi LeeSimpson;

Timewind is correct most zucchini species are are bush types. Zucchino Rampicante "Italian Trombone Squash" is a excellent climber, I have a lot of luck with it.

I have heard that the following are also vining squash species:

* Zucchetta rampicante 'Tromboncino'
(www.superseeds.com)
* Trailing Green Marrow
* Shepherd's heirloom summer squash Zuchetta Rampicante (s-shaped fruit - 3')
* Green Striped Vegetable Marrow
* Mexican C. Pepo called Tatume
* Italian Vegetable Marrow
*"zucchetta rampicante," "tromboncino," or "Italian trombone squash." (Cucurbita
moschata)
* Saffron (Burpee: 63453A)
* Early Prolific Straightneck (61069A)
* Peter Pan Hybrid (52787A)
* Pic-n-Pic Hybrid Crookneck (53215A)
* Early Golden Crookneck (61036A)
* Butterstick Hybrid Zucchini (53231A)
* Burpee Golden Zucchini (53157A)

You definitely don't need a "vining" type of zucchini to get it to climb. I have been growing regular zucchini for 4 years straight up. They don't get as high as tomotoes will, but they will be about 4 feet tall by the end of the growing season. There is a method to it though. If I could find a way to upload my garden pictures, you can see and know how to do it. Without question you can do it without a vine type.

I pound rebar into the ground next to the plant and then slip a piece of metal pipe over that. I then tie the zuccini plant to the pipe as it grows. Keeps it off the ground and it doesn't attack my bare ankles as I walk past.

Snibb-- I'd love to see how you train your zucchini. What problems are you having uploading pictures?

I suggest opening a Photobucket account ( http://www.photobucket.com ) and using their pre-made links to post your photos.

Melon...I don't know how to upload a picture on this forum! If I could, you would see how to do it. But, I will try to explain it this way: first, take a fence post that is 8' tall(the green ones that have a white or a silver color tip on them). They are very strong, and they have sort of a triangular bottom that you pound into the ground. Bang it in the groud for about a foot. Then, take a very heavy rope-mine is about an inch thick(a jump-rope would be great!). Its about 8'10' long. Anyway, tie a strong knot at the base of the post. Now, put in your seeds, transplant, etc. When zucchini starts to grow, it want to lay down. So, you go out there and tie it up with this rope every foot or so. You cannot do it with string. The stem is far too heavy and it will actually end up being "cut" by the string as it falls to the ground. Did that make any sense? Other than that, tell me how to upload a picture on here...you might like it....

Melon...send me your email address...I cant get a picture on here to save my life!.....

Snibb, is there any chance I could get a picture of that? The squash vine borers are so bad in my area that I have to grow my zucchini under row covers, and I'm trying to visualize if there is a way that I can do it under the row covers. I lived in UT for a while and never had trouble with them there -- lucky you. :) liv_christianson@yahoo.com

Will one of you please upload the pics? (Provided you're cool with that, Snibb). I'd love to see as well. Thanks

Im good with it...I hope someone does upload them....

I'm doing zucchini in my square foot garden for the first time as well, I'd love to see the pics. You should be able to upload them to Photobucket or Flickr. Even just a link to the pics would be awesome. Lemme try posting a pic:

Here is a link that might be useful:

Yea ok so you can post pics, all you have to do is upload them anywhere (try photobucket.com) then copy the link for your picture and in the message you're writing here type this:


For example, mine looked like this:

Snibb, I hope you don't mind me posting these, but I figured I'd save you some trouble and just post the pics you sent me. My apologies if I'm stepping on toes here.

That's awesome! Those are just the pictures I've been scouring the internet to see. I hope you don't mind if I print these out for inspiration!

What kind of corn did you grow in the 4x4? I was thinking of doing a 4x8 for corn but if I can get 100 ears out of 4x4 I'll just do that... That's like 5 ears a plant! Is that normal?

How often do you run your drip hoses?

Snibb, feel free to send the pictures to me and I'll post them for you. I've also been souring the internet for these types of pictures of zukes being staked!!

darth...I will send in a few hours if thats okay-its 2 pictures that make it real clear on how to "rope it up." The corn-I put 4 seeds in each square-much like you would lettuce. Each stalk should give you 2 ears of corn(under ideal conditions, and I work hard to do that). Most of mine did, but, I had a few that didn't. Thats why I mentioned that I had over 100 ears of corn in the 4X4. You should get 8 per square. I actually think I got something like 115 or so. If you got 2 on each stalk, you would have 128 ears of corn! I have done a lot of different things over the years. The ones that I will probably grow from now on are the short stalk varieties. They grow to 5' or so, and won't get blown over in wind. See other threads to learn how to protect corn from wind which you will want to look at-the soil is so soft a good wind will level all your corn, and that happened to me one year. The variety I grew last year with more good results were from Burpee's catalog-"Checkered Choice." The stalks are only 4 1/2 feet tall...

Very clever setup, Snibb! Thanks for sharing!

Here are Snibb's directions to go with the pictures posted above:

Step One: Tie a strong knot with a solid piece of rope(string will not work-you will end up breaking your zucchini plant)

Step Two: Plant your zucchini right next to the stake

Step Three: As your zucchini starts to grow, come out and tie it up as
it shows in the second picture. You just have to picture a zucchini stem between the rope and the stake. Very simple....very effective...don't need any kind of "vining" type of zucchini plant. I think mine are garden variety-Black Beauty....give it a try...best of luck.....

That sounds  and looks  great! I've got a couple of Black Beauty I seeded last week, and was a bit concerned about how to get them to obey. Now I know ...

snib, I was considering planting corn and was wondering - with the short variety you mention, do you use any kind of support at all to keep the corn from blowing over? Or is it strong enough that you just grow it? I notice you have a fence behind that bed, that might also help to reduce wind levels.

md...believe it or not, that fence doesn't seem to be much help! I have had 60+MPH wind that totally flattened my corn one year and wrecked the whole thing. But, that doesn't happen anymore-no matter how hard the wind will blow, and it has. I have mentioned how I do it-you can find it on the 2nd page of this website under "Corn in the SFG-how deep...." Its all pretty simple. If you cant picture what it is, be sure to let me know and I will go out there and take a few more pictures.....

"Corn in SFG-how deep" on page 2 of this website...its all there. If you cant picture it, let me know and I will go out there and take a few more pictures

I have only 2 questions, I think. 1) when planting zukes vertically do you plant 2-3 plants as you would in the "hill" method or only 1 plant per stake? 2) exactly how much square footage does the vertical squash require? yep only 2 questions. Thank you in advance

One plant per stake-no need to "hill"
One square foot is all it takes as you can see from the picture. The leaves are large, but the growing space is only 1 square foot....

Thank you again for sharing your knowledge.

Snibb, I read page 2 re the netting strategy you used and would like to try it myself. I am unclear about what it looks like or what it is called. Is it white and has 4" squares? Or is it that orange landscape-like fencing? Clarification would be appreciated. Thanks!
Bene

Bene...its the nylon netting with big open squares, probably 6 inch squares...I have never used the orange landscape fencing you are talking about for anything...

Thanks!

beneficial...is it easy enough to follow or should I send a picture of what I mean?....

Snibb - do you have any closeup pictures of how the zucchini is actually tied up? I've got a stake in the ground and about 8 ft of rope similar to that depicted above, but i'm not sure how/where to tie up the plant. Seems like there are numerous stems that need to be tied up. Thanks again for the info!

Snibb - I would also be interested to see/know exactly how to tie up the plant. do you tie all the leaves up together or just one at a time starting with the longest? It sounds and looks simple enough I have 2 zukes and 1 yellow squash plant almost ready to start climbing it's been a warm spring in NH! Thanks for sharing!

It's been close to a month - does anyone have pictures of how they trellis/stake their zukes or non-vining squash? I've yet to see it (even mel's site has just terrible pictures of the process.)

Snibb, I have to thank you again for your zucchini staking solution. I did exactly this and now I have efficient and vigorously fruiting zucchini and squash trees!

I am trying to do mine vertical and so far so good although it is only a month old it hasn't become the monster plant yet so I am keeping my fingers crossed. I am going to try to keep it pointed up and weave it through the netting. I planted it really close to the trellis netting like mel said to and pulled the leaves through the holes keeping the top of the plant up nice and straight. You can't put all of the leaves through they will bend and break and I am to worried that once the smell of the plant gets out the SVB might find me. If you pull them through when they are new it doesn't seem to be much of a problem.
It does require alot of tending I have to check it daily to make sure it is behaving. If it doesn't want to behave in a few weeks I have the bar of the trellis right behind it and I will just tie it to the stake instead and keep trying to weave it.
Here are some pictures to show you how it looks so far. I will try to remember to report back as the monster grows. If I forget you can check my blog it has updated pictures of plant growth every few weeks. Sorry about the large photo size I thought you would be able to see it better. Right now it is abit bigger almost ready to weave through the trellis and flowering up a storm.

Here is a link that might be useful: my square foot garden blog it has my garden layout and pictures comments are welcome!

darth....glad to see its worked successfully for you. I have done it that way for years..its the only way to grow zucchini if you only want to take up one square foot.....

Darth - do you have any pictures of your staked plant? I have a monster black beauty growing and am not sure whether to tie up each leaf. So far, it has been ok, but I am scared that constantly pushing the leaves together and up will pinch the flowers and fruits forming below. Thanks!

From far in the future: Was directed to this thread by a post I read today. I'd been planning on growing several different veggies vertically this year and this thread not only solved the question of "How?" but gave some very valuable pictures and hints. Definitely hope this goes to the top of the current vegetables forum to help other people. However in the world did I miss this before?

bcskye..because there are many ninja secrets out there! :-) You just have to know where to look. There's a lot of poor advice here sometimes. I've seen folks say things like "you cant grow zucchini vertically." Well, once you've seen it, and once you do it, you will then know better. Take some pictures along the way and send them off to us..good luck-it will work-without any question...

Thank you, snibb! You're right about many secrets here and so, so much information. I'm an old gardener and have learned many new things from the different forums on here. I try to tell the younger generation that the older you get, the more you know you don't know. And, yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks. I have a large garden, but for years I've wanted to keep zucchini and some of the other vining veggies from growing into every one's space and now I know how to do it. Will try to get some good pictures when everything gets going good.

Hello all, I'm trying to revive this discussion and perhaps some pictures. I am searching/researching after the fact rather then before. I planted a zuchini in the corner of the raised bed with a trellis thinking I would give it at max 2 sq feet and grow vertically but I may be mistaken based on what I am reading. The pictures and blogs from this post are no longer available. Can anyone share with me photos of attempts to get the zuchini (bush type I'm pretty sure) to grow vertically - otherwise I might just move it to my front yard and let it take over :-)

Thanks,

Update on vertical zucchini-last year instead of using jump rope to tie up zucchini I used velcro. I just tied it up every 8-10 inches or so and it worked like a charm. I made sure to double up on each piece of velcro I used though, just to make sure it was strong enough to hold that big stem....hope that gives you an even simpler way to do it...

You can also use tomato baskets to accomplish the same goal - just keep forcing the green growth to grow inside the hoops as it continues to grow upward....

I pulled out my entire traditional garden this year and went to square foot and vertical gardening...I am sooooo excited about it....we have ALOT of different types of squash in this year...and I am wanting them to grow vertically...and hopefully one every square foot...So my question is.....does anyone have photos from your years past showing squash variety plants growing vertically that close together? I know it can be done because I have seen it at a University of Utah expo...but I am new at this type of gardening and would love to see photos ...I love this type of gardening already...we made our soil...built our boxes (did concrete block ...it warms up so quickly). My plants have grown big already and it's only May...and for Utah that's pretty early....I'm so excited about gardening this year..and glad I joined this forum!

Mamagrower-if you live in Utah than I'm your neighbor. I have a lot of pictures. Go to my website at: www.thewealthyearth.com and then go to photo gallery. It's all there. I've grown all vining crops vertically for a dozen or more years. Nothing like it.

I love this thread; I am trying to determine at which point I start to secure the stalk to the metal stake? I am trying to attach a photo as reference. My husband says we need to wait until it's taller? Are the side shoots what we should stake? Thanks for any tips :-)

Hey Deb and Glen, did you ever figure out when to stake? I am about where you are, mine are starting to flower and growing so wide they are taking over! Do you have any updated pics or how did you end up staking? Rope? Thanks!

Yes, we have now tied the central stalk as it started to drift over (almost like it was preparing to grow outwards on the ground). we used a foam covered wire for now, and wrapped it a few times to secure the stalk. I cut the bottom leaves back as ours were also pushing over nearby plants, and this worked well as the upper leaves still offer shade for our lettuce beside it. If I can get a photo, I will post it. We are very optimistic it will work! I was nervous and now i'm glad we did the upright method :-)

I also planted them during summer,and they got rotten I thought maybe it's bcos of the wet ground by somebody told n it not their season that is why they