Planting this was an act of desperation. Every year I dutifully planted yellow crookneck squash and/or zucchini at the beginning of June and every year it was dead by the end of July. It took me a few years to figure out what was causing it: the squash vine borer. They’re moths that overwinter as pupae in the soil. They hatch and come out of the ground in early summer and from mid-June to mid-July the females fly around and lay their eggs at the base of unsuspecting squash plants. The eggs hatch and the little caterpillars burrow into the stem. There they feed and grow for a month or so. Once they’re mature enough they drop into the soil, spin their own cocoons and the cycle starts all over again. By then they’ve cut the the roots off from the rest of the plant and the prognosis is not good. You’ll look out the window, see the wilted leaves and think, “Oh, they’re just stressed by the sun.” No, they’re dead.
The owner of the local nursery told me to spray it with Sevin every week or so till the Fourth of July. As an organic gardener, that was out of the question. I looked for alternate ways of fighting them. I wrapped the stems in aluminum foil. I planted trap crops. I rotated religiously, used row covers and pollinated by hand. I started them late, I started them early. I even operated on the stems of affected plants, pulled out the caterpillars and buried the stems in soil, hoping they would recover. Most of the time they didn’t.
I did notice, however, that my butternut squash sailed through every growing season without a glitch. I went online to discover why. One link led to another and soon I had my answer. Turns out there are 4 types of squash: pepo, maxima, mixta and moschata. The moschata are generally tan colored (like butternut squash, Long Island cheese pumpkins, acorn squash, etc.), and they have solid stems. There’s nowhere for the borers to go! Now I just had to find a summer squash in this category. The bad news is that there aren’t many options. Then I found zucchini rampicante, an old Italian heirloom. I ordered mine from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.
It’s not a terribly well behaved plant, which could make it a challenge for the average home gardener. As you can see from the above picture it overwhelmed the garden fence and grew up into the neighbor’s trees. Around midsummer I noticed patches of powdery mildew on the leaves. Would that kill it? Did we beat the borers only to be felled by fungus? Nope! It infected the plants but didn’t seem to slow them down.
But how did it taste? I had read conflicting reports on how it was as a summer squash. Some said it was mealy and bland. I didn’t think that at all. It has a nice, buttery taste that I like better than regular zucchini. I tried to pick them small because, generally, with summer squash, the quality of the fruit is inversely proportional to its size. Smaller is better. But even this guy in the middle, that was 2 pounds, 10 ounces and 28 inches long had a good taste and texture. Were the plants prolific? Yes! In 2020 I picked over 30 pounds of the summer iteration. From 2 plants!
How is it as a winter squash? Well, the fruits held up well, lasting a good five months in storage. The taste? I wasn’t crazy about it. It didn’t have the sweetness of a butternut squash, which is what I grow butternut squash for.
Would I grow it again? Absolutely! Its flavor and productivity as a summer squash far outweighs its shortcomings as a winter.