Cocozella Di Napoli Squash

I've grown this variety for a couple of seasons. One reason I wanted to try it is because I have problems with the dreaded squash vine borer. I've tried all sorts of strategies to control this beautiful and evil moth and Cocozella di Napoli is part of the most successful strategy so far. The stems are very thick walled and hollow in the center, which allows the plants to endure some damage by vine borers. What I do is I mix up a small batch of Bt and inject the stems periodically with the mixture, killing the larvae. More will show up (because my area is lousy with SVB), but the stems can handle it with a little help from Bt every now and then. Also, the squash are really tasty. Much less watery than typical zucchini. The only drawback to this variety is if you pick a little too late, they can be too dry and pithy. Anyway...highly recommended!

I never liked zucchini much as a summer squash but this variety has an exotic name, so I ordered the seeds, hoping for the best. What a find. Even when fairly large, the fruits are solid and meaty with a fine taste, not like regular zucchini, which is watery and bland. Also, not too many seeds. No problems in growing, even though we are having one heck of a drought high temperatures month after month. No insect damage whatsoever. Didn't have to fertilize. However, the zucchini I am growing (it's still producing as of today, Aug. 10/18) doesn't look quite like in the photo. There's no yellow stripes - more like light green instead. I wonder what is the difference between this variety and Striata d'Italia. Also, this is one summer squash that tastes great raw. Thank you, Baker Creek Seed Co.

This was my first year growing this squash. It seems that with summer squash it is a question of when the pests win as opposed to if. Long after my yellow squash had given up the ghost to squash bugs and the like this Cocozelle was growing green, hardy and producing squash. This will be my "go to" zucchini seed. How refreshing after spending years watching the bugs ravage my summer squash.

I grew this and another variety of yellow squash. The yellow squash produced good early then was attacked by bugs & never quite came back. This zucchini was a little slower to grow, but produced great foliage with tons of male flowers which seemed resistant to the bugs. To this day it still has not produced a single female flower. My online research said I should be more patient...we're well past that. At this point I have been harvesting my yellow squash for over a month. I can see new baby blossoms coming in and they are all still male. Some other research suggested I might have high nitrogen, but it is growing next to tomatoes that do not indicate high nitrogen. Can anyone shed light on this issue?

Really tasty. Huge plant, so make sure you space adequately