Have you tried the old Italian varieties like Costata Romanesco or Cocozelle? Supposed to have the best flavor. There are many types from around the world to offer variety, but if unripe summer squash had sweet varieties, wouldn't they be common?

I’ve never heard of a sweet summer squash. I would think that if they existed they would be heavily marketed.

I have heard Tatume recommended often for Texas. Supposedly it can be used both as a summer squash (no, it’s not sweet when picked unripe) and allowed to mature for use as a winter squash. But I’ve never tried it.

What do you do to avoid SVBs? I’ve tried all kinds of things, none of which worked.

Everyone says that Tatume has a sweet-ish taste, or maybe almost-sweet. This is said about it before it matures. Probably not as sweet as fully mature winter squash. Regular zukes are fine, if they are liberally seasoned. I should have said that a vining variety is optimal for me, and Tatume is one of the few vining summer squashes.

Costata Romaneso or Cocozelle are interesting recommendations. I will research.

Avoiding SVBs? It's simple, but it only works if you're in the south and have a long growing season. You wait them out. No row covers, surgery, or pesticides. https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6152532/fear-the-borers-no-more

As mentioned above I also do not know of a sweet summer squash. Even wInter squash varieties are barely sweet to me unless "sugared up" with baked-in additives. I stopped growing winter squash years ago and switched to growing sweet potatoes which are naturally much sweeter, have few to no pests, are more productive, store longer (for me), and take up a similar area of garden space as compared to vining winter squashes. The only advantage of winter squashes is that they are easier to harvest (no digging). Sorry Dan, no real answer I know, just an alternative.

That's a fair point. If you're just after sugar, sweet potatoes are the king, followed by beets and onions. Winter squash have about half as much sugar as sweet potatoes. Yes, onions have a lot of sugar. You respect that fact after you taste caramelized onions! I can generalize and say that I'm just looking for summer squash that actually have much taste!

taste is subjective, but for me yellow crooknecks have the best flavor. Zucchini has its own unique flavor which does vary among variety, quite different from crooknecks.

Tromboncino Squash, also called Zucchetta, is a long vine of a different species of squash, used similar to Zucchini. You could try it for something different.

I've grown Tromboncino. The problem is that, yes, it is similar to zucchini, flavor-wise. Flavor of summer squash is usually very very subtle. I'm looking for something a little more assertive.

Can you grow Watermelon?

I routinely grow canteloupe and honeydew. But this is about getting good tasting squash. I don't broil, stir-fry, or stew my melons.

FWIW, I was growing a winter squash for some years - originally a volunteer that I saved seeds from - and the green immature fruits were sweet, compared to regular summer squashes. I harvested when the skin was still soft.

And FWIW, I like sweet potatoes and I like squash - but I do not consider one a substitute for the other. I think they taste very different.

Another vote for Costata Romanesco. It's not as productive as the hybrid zucchinis but the flavor and texture is far superior. Baker Creek is my source but there are others.

The Costata Romanesco sounds interesting but, as I said, I'd prefer a vining plant, that can grow along the ground. These would be planted in rows with other veggies, and a very vertical, bushy plant will tend to seriously shade those plants adjacent to it. Few summer squash are vining, so that's a handicap.

I think you may be SOL then because I don't believe there are any true vining squash that would be considered a summer squash.

Except that's what everyone says Tatume is. Vining summer squash.

"Whether you grow from seeds or transplants, be prepared for rapid vine growth. The first year I grew ‘tatume’ I planted my transplants in early April. By late April I was beginning to wonder what I had gotten myself into. In three weeks time the plant sent out vines that were more than six feet long! In addition, each place a node lay against the ground, it rooted and sent out more vines. The “aggressive” vining habit of this plant is about the only thing bad I can say about it. If you choose to grow ‘tatume,’ put it in a place that allows it room to grow since it is not uncommon for it to send out 12-foot vines in all directions."

https://www.texasgardener.com/tatume-vigorous-flavorful-squash/

Seems to me, that's a very GOOD thing you can say about it!

Seems like it is a unique squash that grows like a gourd vine and is good to eat unripe. Needs it own category. Certainly not similar to zucchini, but then you don't want zucchini. You should definitely try it.

Daninthedirt, thanks for the information about using timing to avoid SVBs. I will try it next year. But it may not work here in North Florida because I think we have more than two generations of SVBs per year.

I have heard a few gardeners in Central Florida say that they grow Parthenon or other parthenocarpic zucchinis in containers inside their screened pool enclosures!

You might want to check on that with your local extension. My understanding is that up north, SVBs have one generation per year. Down south, they may have two. My references to Florida SVBs always refer to two, which may be overlapping. Never heard of more than that.

That's the marvelous thing about having a long growing season. You can just throw away a few months and have plenty of growing season left. Around here, the main issue is that you're planting out just when it's starting to get very hot, and the plant hasn't yet developed a canopy for cooling shade.

Up north, by the time the SVBs are gone, you don't have much growing season left.

I was advised (maybe by you) on an other thread recently to try eating my immature winter squashes. They were delicious! Sweeter and firmer than zucchini, which, like you, I find to have no flavor. The skin was edible, and the flesh was crisp when raw (would be nice in salad), and firmer than zuke after cooking a lot longer than I would have cooked zuke. This was a maxima winter squash that gets very sweet when mature. You want a vining plant, and something sweeter and with more character than zuke. So I'd recommend giving it a try. Also, the vine might keep setting more and more fruits if you pull them off immature.

I have been looking for the famous Costata Romanesca variety of zucchini, because it is said to have more flavor than all the others. All my regular seed sources list it as out of stock and I suspect they've stopped carrying it. I finally got Cassia F1 from Fedco, said to be an approximation or descendent of Costata Romanesca but more robust and productive.

Well, the question was what summer squash have any flavor WHEN RIPE. Immature winter squash always have less flavor than mature winter squash, so under no circumstance would I want to pick them before they are ripe. As noted below, several Romanesco summer squash (such as Costata and Cassia) have more flavor than zukes, but I'd really like to have a vining variety, and these are not. I think I'm going to go with Tatume. The silly thing is that I'm confident about avoiding SVBs, and I want to celebrate that by growing summer squash, but Tatume is allegedly highly SVB resistant.

Yes, zucchini has so little flavor, it's no surprise that people desperately want to avoid getting a basket dumped on them which, since it is so easy to grow (in the absence of SVBs), makes that happen a lot.

You might be interested in a new experimental Delicata called "Tetra" from Row 7 seeds. It was bred specifically for good flavor at both immature and mature stages:

https://www.row7seeds.com/products/tetra-squash

Isn't a ripe summer squash big, tough, and full of seeds that nobody usually eats?

What I meant by "ripe" was "ready to pick". You can let any fruit stay on the vine lots longer than it's supposed to, and you don't call it ripe when you do. More likely, you call it tough, dry, or moldy.

Re Tetra, that's interesting. It is pepo, so it is indeed a summer squash. It is Delicata, which is most commonly vining. So that would be good. They say it is "zero-waste". What exactly does that mean? Does that mean that you can eat them at any stage of maturity? I'd think that most summer squash is like that.

Their description references the young stems and blossoms being edible as well, so I think that’s where they’re going with the ”no waste” label:

”With zero waste as the end goal, more experimentation soon followed. Inspired by traditional uses of Cucurbita pepo stems and leaves across cuisines, Michael continued selecting for sweeter, less fibrous petiole stems. The blossoms are also edible, encouraging a truly stem-to-fruit approach for chefs, growers and eaters.”

Well, blossoms and stems are edible for most any summer squash, so that hardly makes Tetra special. Cutting stems on the diagonal to make a penne-like dish is well understood. Edible leaves might be considered somewhat special, though. Most squash leaves might be edible, but aren't very appetizing.

An Indian friend from the state of Orissa once looked at a zucchini plant and said that back home they used to mash the leaves on the spice grinding stone and then cook them.