My method was to try to clear the vines from the middle centre first.
Hopefully this will enable you to use letters from that column to get the cheese spreading down.
Always make 4 letter words or more.
This will help clear more of the board in a move, and create crowns or line blasters that will also help with clearing the board and spreading the cheese.
Here are some more tips (thanks to Stuart Allen)
It is imperative that you make 6+ letter words for those first few words. It isn't that difficult because the board is WIDE open.
Don't worry about the entanglers or the cheese for the first 5 moves - just make big blasters!
That will take care of most of the entanglers and THEN you can start working on the cheese.
If there ever is a level designed for long words this is it!