Whips, chairs, and the indispensable machete!

Doesn't sound like there is all that much you can do at this point in the season. You can try to cut off melon vines, or tomato branches, if you value what they are shading more.

Next time if you have limited space, melons are a bad choice... tomatoes of course should be grown upwards with support, tall cages work the best.

You don't mention the size of your garden and a photo would be a big help to see the specific problems. But the most common cause of "over-grown garden" is that it was over-planted and over-crowded to begin with. So for next year better organized may just mean better plant spacing.

It also sounds like you have perennials (rhubarb, strawberries, etc.) mixed with annuals rather than giving the perennials their own separate space. And you have spring crops intermixed with summer crops. That makes organizing a garden even more difficult for many reasons. Lettuces in July? Potatoes should be done and dug by now given the heat.

Just some thoughts for consideration.

Dave

Yes, it was overplanted. I planted out my seedlings and then we had a late frost so I direct sowed some seeds as insurance against the stunted plants. I have thinned, but surely not enough. At this point, how can I cut back the squashes and melons to save as much fruit as possible? I'm interested to know the reasoning for not mixing perennials with annuals. I have plenty of room outside the garden to plant melons next year, if there is a way to protect the fruit from critters. OK, here I go to check the potatoes and take some pictures.

Try to start at the center of the plant and follow it out..after you've counted 2 or 3 fruit on a stem, you can cut it...just do that carefully and you can limit the sprawling..you might lose a little fruit, but by July...not that much. If they are so tangled that you will rip a good part out trying to take a bad part out, do it in stages..cut a couple of places, let the vine lie there and die, then go back and cut the dead part out in smaller pieces, cut a couple more long vines, etc.