GardenBanter.co.uk - Zucchetta squash?

T wrote:
Hi All,

Supposedly Zucchetta are bug resistant.

https://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/79914/

But they are climbing. What happens if you don't
give them something to climb on?

they'll sprawl out along the ground and the
fruits will be a bit dirty. not a huge deal
to me. it may also affect how productive they
are (if the pollinators don't like being down
that low or whatever).

it isn't that hard to pound a few stakes in
the ground and run some strings or wires for
things to climb up. or to build a teepee out
of scrap wood.

a 100ft roll of 6ft fence runs about $130
plus stakes at about $4 each, so say $200 for
100ft of climbable fence. scaled down you can
use other things for sure if you can find things
as scrap or along the road or ask people for
things to use or such.

some people use trees that are spaced out well
enough to let some light through, but then they
grow grapes and other climbing plants in there
too as a 2nd layer of production. it's a bit
too much for me to contemplate since i don't
care to have trees getting the sun from my
vegetable gardens.

food forests can be pretty productive though
between fruits and nuts and forage for animals
and anything that hits the ground can be fed to
chickens or pigs. so it can be a nice system
with the shade too in an arid climate that shade
is worth a lot.

songbird