You could grow zucchetta! I am championing it because I was finally able to grow a squash without fighting squash bugs.

Are you coming to the Spring Fling? I can bring you some.

Oh, thank you, Lisa. You all are always so sweet and generous. I have wanted to come to the Spring Fling ever since I heard about it a few years ago, but my husband is slightly disabled. I don't leave him alone & he wouldn't be able to come with me.

Oh, we are going to be in your neighborhood this year...Jenks! If not, private message me your address, I'll mail you some.

Lisa

Patty, I grow them under floating row cover on hoops until it is time for pollination some years. I haven't needed to do that the last couple of years and in 2011 never had squash bugs and then didn't have any until August of last year.

I watch for them and try to catch them early while they still are in the nymph stage because they are easier to catch and kill.

Sunflowers will attract stink bugs away from some plants, but I don't think they do a thing for the squash bugs. The two bugs look similar but aren't the same.

This year I am trying two kinds of summer squash that are new to me from the C. moschata family (same family as zuchetta). Squash bugs don't seem to bother any kind of moschata family squash I've grown, or very rarely do, and the squash vine borers, which are a bigger issue in my area, never have killed any C. moschata type that I have grown. I've about given up growing most pumpkins and winter squash because of vine borers, and with the summer squash, I plant them in multiple places scattered around the garden areas, as far from one another as possible, so that even in the pests find one plant, maybe they won't find the other.

If you want to try the two new summer squash I'm trying, email me your address through 'My Page' and I'll send you some seed. Both of the varieties I'm growing are oriental and when the squash are at the right stage for harvesting, they look like avocados.

Some years squash bugs and squash vine borers are awful and some years I don't have them at all, and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason that explains why they are bad one year and not the next.

Dawn

I have only had SVB one time in my garden and it was the year that I used straw mulch. I have squash bugs every year and they seem to choose all the other squash before zucchetta, but they will also bother it, however, it is such a strong plant that they have never killed mine. I have had them damage a runner, but never kill the plant. It is still my favorite summer squash.

Thanks, everybody. Do the zuchetta and the moschetta taste like zucchini? We love zucchini. That's why I want to grow it.

It has a firmer texture than zucchini or yellow squash. It has a nuttier flavor. It is really good in stir fries.