My squash vines have decided to climb to the sky on the trellis that I made from a bent hog panel. (That was a job and a half. It's a great way to build upper body strength, but I don't recommend it for the faint of heart. Hog panels would prefer not to bend.) And not only are the vines clambering up and over and all around the structure, but they are starting to set fruit. This is some kind of pumpkin, I think, and daily swells another couple of centimeters. It is soooo exciting! The downside of growing squash vertically is that (1) squash vines are very brittle, for all that they are ferociously spiny, (2) the little coiling clingers that grow are not very muscular, so you actually need to weave the prickly vines very gently through the openings in the trellis, and (3) one of the reasons squash vines grow along the ground is that they sprout little rootlets to help feed the voracious mother plant. How to overcome all these challenges? Well, aside from getting in touch with my inner weaver, I find that making hammocks out of old strips of cloth or orange net bags, combined with trusty garden twine, provides enough support for the ripening fruit to not fall off of the delicate vine as it grows. (The net bag makes a neat pattern on the skin of the squash, too.) I also supplement the feeding of the plant by shoveling some rabbit manure around the mother plant, and watering weekly with a fish emulsion. So far, it seems to be working well! Keep your fingers crossed that we have a nice long fall, so my squashes have a chance to grow and mature before the hard frosts arrive.