If you’re short on space and can’t afford to have winter squash plants trailing on the ground, then you have two good options.
The first option is to choose a bush variety – these can happily be grown in a large pot or container (one plant per container) filled with good quality compost. You’d need the pots to be nice and big, a good 50-60cm wide ideally and deep too. If growing in anything smaller than that, then the better quality the compost, the more the plants have a chance to thrive and a fortnightly liquid feed once they start fruiting will help too.
The second option is to position your plants in pots or in a bed just in front of a sturdy trellis and encourage the plant to climb. It will naturally wrap its tendrils around the trellis, and you can encourage it by winding it through, and/or snip off any growth that is trying to go in the wrong direction. If you go for this option, we’d recommend choosing those trailing varieties with smaller fruits that aren’t as heavy. Butternut Squash size or Uchiki Kuri would be the maximum really, as anything bigger will be very heavy for the plant to hold up.
