The squash trellis is working!

By KEN KORCZAK

As promised, I'm back with an update on how my squash trellis is functioning. So far, so great. As you can see in the picture,the vines are a-creepin' up the frame.

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I should say, however, that I had to give it more than a little help to get it started. At first, the squash ignored the trellis with the vigor of a Department of Motor Vehicle employee ignoring people coming in to renew their licenses.

At first I tried to simply prop the vine against the sticks, but the wind just blew it off. Then I decided to gently tie the squash stem in place, and that seems to have done the trick.

I can already see that I'll have to add some additional slats in between the first and second tiers. There just needs to be more to grab onto.

The best thing is that the squash is growing extremely well. There's lots of blossoms and bugs. We've had near perfect weather and rainfall -- so I'm looking forward to squash up the wazoo in a couple of months!

Ken Korczak is the author of: MINNESOTA PARANORMALA, VOLUME 1

Squash Trellis: Check back in later to see if it works

The Squash Trellis

KEN KORCZAK:

So this summer we are trying a trellis for the first time, in this case, a squash trellis.

When I posted a picture of this on Facebook, a number of my wiseacre friends said it looked like something out of the Blair Witch Project. (If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll get the snarky jokes.)

Whatever, I think it looks cools. If it makes the squash grow upward this year rather than spreading out to monopolize the whole garden, well then, mission accomplished. My wife gets all the credit for strapping this thing together. It's just three long sticks from the woods lashed together with twine and -- ta-da! -- a squash trellis.

My enterprising wife also fashioned another trellis using some parts from an old gazebo frame. Does not have the atavistic look of the Blair Witch version, but we'll see which one works better.

In reading up about this, I found that most people report that the squash doesn’t need to be “trained” to climb the trellis, but will do so naturally. So stay tuned. I’ll post updated pictures as the squash grows and (hopefully) climb up upon the Blair Witch stick pyramid.

Oh, by the way, I thought I would include a shot of where the squash is starting. As you can see below, it is still quite small, and we may have to re-position this a bit as the plant grows.