“What the heck are you growing there?” This was the question I got from gardeners I knew and those I didn’t. A monster plant had taken over my garden plot. Its huge leaves blocked the sun from reaching my shorter crops and its vines grew two feet per day strangling my tomatoes and other squashes.
Summer 2019 was my third season ever growing vegetables. It was the hottest summer on record at the time. I got a late start buying sets and couldn’t find zucchini anywhere. Frustrated, I purchased the very last two zucchini sets at Agway without reading the labels in detail. After all, isn’t a zucchini a zucchini? I stuck both in the back corner of my plot and watered, weeded, etc.
By August, the two had merged into one enormous, Little Shop of Horrors-style mass five feet tall and 12 feet in circumference. Hidden deep under the leaves were long python-shaped fruits, which curled when they hit the ground. It was more than an oddity; it was scary!
It was fellow gardener, Joan Francolini, who finally Googled an image and identified it as Cucuzza Serpenta di Sicilia, an Old World Italian Zucchini Cucuzzi, Serpent of Sicily.
The fruits were more delicious than zucchini when sliced and grilled with olive oil or grated and put in ”zucchini bread.” Left to dry, the fruits became hollow, hard-shelled gourds that made a beautiful table decoration studded with tealights. My unwitting purchase provided entertainment at Sea Call for much of the summer, but I must say that I feel absolutely no need to grow the Serpent of Sicily ever again!
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