For me it's a matter of making do with what I've got. I have only 4 4x8 beds. I already have the north side trellis space spoken for by cucumbers and other vining squash. I have a partly shady yard, so spots in the sun are precious, and more trellis on any side other than north lead to more shade issues. I have lots of yard room for the vines to sprawl. So for my specific conditions, this seems to be the best idea. I'm just trying to figure out how to get the most bang for my buck. I agree that I'll have some weed issues. I grew a couple of butternuts this way last year. My plan is to spread pinestraw in the sprawl area to try to keep the weeds to a minimum. I have no grass, so mowing isn't a problem. I will place the growing fruits on top of an upside down plastic plate or bowl with drainage holes in, to keep the fruit from bottom rot or bug issues that might occur from direct ground contact. And I'm going to bring out the big guns on the powdery mildew problems that have plagued me with all of my curcubits. I bought a copper based fungicide. (I used milk/baking soda last year, but with the wet weather, the organic solution just wasn't enough.) So now my main concern is how many plants in my limited space will give me the best possible results. Hence my question. Can I plant them 1 per square foot with reasonable success, given that vine spread isn't an issue. Thanks again for any advice anyone can give. Susan

Don't worry. If you run out of room, just pull out the under-performing plants and forge ahead. One zuke is more than enough for a family of four for fresh eating and it'll start producing long before it gets huge. You can always succession plant -- so when the one zuke gets bigger and production starts to taper off, the replacement is getting big enough to flower. There's also a climbing zuke that likes growing in containers, but I haven't tried it. When I lived in California and had a small patio, I gardened square foot style. Most everything grew with precision and exactly as the books and web sites say. In Alabama? I think there's steroids in the dirt. I get monsters here. I experimented with small melon plants last year, and Minnesota Midget really does live up to the description but all the melons ripened at once and then the plant died. I got 5 4-5" melons off a tiny little plant with a couple of 4' vines, though. This year I am trying a reportedly smaller zuke plant (cocozelle) and smaller winter squash varieties. I have lots of room but the BF doesn't eat many veggies and I need smaller portions!

Pot is just for the root system. It can be a 10 gal. container of any shape. But it is the vines that need to be managed. Since pumpking are often heavy, it is not practical to trelis a pumpkin. So it has to crawl. In this case, as suggested above, you need to do a lot of training and directing in order to contain it in a small area.

Don't think it's "new" been here for years (prior to buying the home). So maybe to be safe, I'll hit up the local HD and line it with thick plastic... THANKS!