I am not positive, but I think you may be talking about trombetta squash. I am not sure where to find the seeds, but there is probably someone online that sells them.

Sounds like Zucchino Rampicante.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/56773/

Baker Creek carries them but are out at the moment.
http://rareseeds.com/seeds/Squash-Summer/Zucchino-Rampicante-Zucca-d-Albenga

I see that Reimer has them, but I have never ordered from them.
http://www.reimerseeds.com/tromboncino-zucchini-squash.aspx

My guess, from the description of "a baseball bat", is cucuzzi, which is an edible gourd (Lagenaria siceraria). It is a rampant climbing vine, with white flowers. The "squash" are the very immature gourds, harvested when they are 1-2" wide, light green & fuzzy. Don't have any photos, but I've grown it; wasn't happy with the productivity. The wife knew it by the Filipino name of "Opo", and made a good soup from it.

"Zucchetta Rampicante Tromboncino" is known by various combinations of the names, sometimes with zucchini or zucchino; it is most often referred to as "Tromboncino". It is a relative of the "Butternut" squash (Cucurbita moschata). Like cucuzzi, it is also a rampant climber, but with large yellow flowers. The squash are harvested young, at about the same size as the cucuzzi - but they are bright green, with a bulbous end.
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Zucchetta Rampicante Tromboncino

I have been very happy with the productivity of Tromboncino, it has permanently replaced the more problematic zucchini in my garden. The vines are highly resistant to SVB, with only an occasional loss. Far less disease-prone too. Since the squash are 90% seedless, they stay firm when frozen.

thank you for responding. that pic looked almost like the one i am looking for. the ones i remember are straight. but, if i can do the same with that zucchini that i can with the regular green zucchini, that would be great. i will try to hunt down the seeds.

i grew butternut squash for the fist time this year and they seem to be doing well. i have not picked them yet.

and as far as my green zucchini, well, this year was not good. i had 4 plants that produced flowers, but not one zucchini.

thanks again for the responses

j-a

zeedman,
im also growing tromboncino, and i sowed them three weeks ago, and they are a foot tall. i sowed them b/c my zukes conked out, and all my buttercups got annihilated by the SVB because I'm growing them vertically (I have four plants left out of 15)... i'm growing the tromboncino only because I thought they had a solid stem and completely impervious to the SVB. did you lose some of them to SVB ? are you certain that is what it was ?

what is SVB?? my butternut, the vines are starting to dry up or is that what it is supposed to do??

thanks again.

j-a

Squash Vine Borer ( SVB) nothing is impervious, but they rarely affect C. moschata like butternuts. They typically destroy the vine beginning at the base and the symptom is wilting. Winter squash including butternut start to dry up when the fruits mature, which is a signal to harvest them. Lots of diseases and insects can cause it to happen prematurely tho.
Every body and his half brother that caters to home gardeners carries the Trombocino under one of its many names. Territorial, Nichols, Cooks, ( Baker Creek lists it as Zucchini Rampicante/
Gourmet Seed International has both the Trombocino and the Cucuzzi

well...i grew the uncle davids dakota dessert squash, which is a buttercup, and i've never grown winter squash before (or anything else for that matter).... and I was growing them vertically....15 of them.. all started massively wilting...wow... so i maybe cut out 20 SVBs... and lost 7 plants... then three weeks later, they wilted again, and cut out another 10 or so. only four plants remain, and only because I pulled them down from the trellis, and buried the devoured stem.

then, i had a pollination problem... and had to hand-pollinate them. so i have around 7 fruits set about two weeks ago, and my frost date is nov. 19, so i hope they'll mature in time. WISH ME LUCK !!!

god, i hate that SVB...so disgusting. but got me thinking....that the squash i planted, wasn't intended to grow vertically, for reasons mentioned above. had i grown them on the ground, they'd have simply re-rooted, and thrived.

Diclemeg, I'm sure that my Tromboncino has been attacked by SVB, because I've seen the frass at the base of the vines which is pushed out by their larvae. Some years every vine was attacked, some years (like this one) no sign of them whatsoever. Only rarely have they killed a vine; my worst loss was 3 of 10 one year. The vines seem to have a strong defense mechanism, the larvae are seldom able to grow to the point where they cause serious damage. In most cases, if I check the infected vines later in the summer, there is no further sign of the larvae.

Planted about September 1st, with a first frost November 19th... that could be a race. I generally get a few at about 60-70 days, but they don't really get going (like the photo above) until another month after that. In your warmer weather, provided they have adequate water, your Tromboncino might grow considerably faster. Good luck!

Oh, and I never had good success either when trying to cut out the SVB larvae from my infected C. maxima squash. There were almost always several larvae - I counted 10 in one plant - and I was never able to remove them all before they had caused fatal damage. I had moderately good luck shoving a pipe cleaner into their burrows; but that too was not fully effective.

For my zone, the answer proved to be covering the plants with floating row cover until the vines outgrew it, by which time the SVB egg-laying season was apparently over. No losses to SVB since. I've heard from others on this forum that there are two egg-laying cycles for SVB in the Southern states (I only have one to contend with) so I don't know if the method would work as well in the warmer climes.

zeedman...thank you for the info... this is fantastic, for now what i will do is grow them on the ground and covered, until the threat is over, and then remove the cover and grow them vertically.

now i gotta find out from the coop extension when the borer season is over, though this may be a problem for they have given wrong info before, like saying its ok to sow spinach until aug 7 (its not, it quickly bolts).

im in zone 7a, which is the game as Va, parts of GA, NC, etc..... do you know when this double egg-laying cycle ends in the south ?

the actual act and problem of the borer itself makes me think that either i planted too early, or that they shouldnt be grown vertically, or something else, because it would seem it is so unnatural, because nature is beautiful and the borer is so appalling and disgusting. i wonder what the natural thing to do is to prevent them in the first place, such as cultural controls, or something the indians did, because surely they did not have row covers. and when searching for a solution, i thought i read somewhere that professional growers paint the stem white to confuse them. do you have any inklings on what cultural controls or natural controls exist?

I think you are looking for tromboncino - when they grow on a trellis, they are straight. Here is a picture of one I harvested on sep 9th this year:
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And here it is next to my dog haha - definitely straight and about 3 feet long:
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Some vines ended up growing across the ground instead of up the trellis, and those squash are coming out curled just like the ones in zeedman's picture above.

I really love this squash - it is delicious! Also as others said, my acorn squash were decimated by SVB but these are still alive. The only problem was I didn't get any squash to grow up until these past few weeks - now there are about 7 - 10 of them. I think that may have been due to the horrible weather we had earlier this summer though. This was my 1st year growing them - I will definitely plant them again next year.

I LOVE this squash--unfortunately, it has not been very productive for me this year (maybe because of the weather, as mentioned above), but I will definitely grow it again next year. As far as trelissing goes, you have to watch these buggers as they will try to trail all over the place :)

Susaneden, you are right- they sure do try to trail all over the place!

In the 1st picture I posted above, you can kind of see towards the back of the picture is where I actually planted the seeds - where the yellow leaves are and they grow up to the top of the fence. The entire vine that goes across the picture to the left, with the squash, jumped off the back trellis, crossed into the neighboring bed, and grew across that trellis that was supposed to be home to fall peas. I guess it is a good thing the fall peas didn't grow for me this year!

On the other side of my yard the same thing happened - I had a couple tromboncino planted and they sent out these huge vines that grew down along the ground about 7 - 8 feet long, across my yard behind a bunch of flowers, in the shade of the fence! Then they tried to grow onto another trellis where I am growing green beans! I just lifted them up this Sunday and hung them on the fence so they'd get out of my flowers and get more sun.

I had read earlier this year on this forum that I better have a strong trellis for these plants - that poster wasn't kidding! It is amazing how they just keep growing.