Crops & Breeds › Vegetable Garden
🎃 Winter Squash
Vegetable Garden · growing reference
| Days to maturity | 85 days – 110 days, by type |
|---|---|
| Germination | 8 days |
| Direct sowing | +5 days vs transplants |
| Spacing | 36″ in the row × 72″ between rows |
| Planted as | seed |
| Water | ~1–2 in a week |
When to plant
In USDA zone 6, for example: Plant out around Apr 22, once your last frost has passed.
| Spring | |
|---|---|
| Zone 3 | May 22 |
| Zone 4 | May 14 |
| Zone 5 | May 3 |
| Zone 6 | Apr 22 |
| Zone 7 | Apr 8 |
| Zone 8 | Mar 22 |
| Zone 9 | Feb 27 |
Dates are the typical window for each zone's average frost dates — your own last frost can differ by a couple of weeks. Zone 10 and warmer is effectively frost-free: plant to the season, not the frost. Southern Hemisphere: shift six months.
Squash Types
- Acorn · 85 days · 4–8 lbs/plant — C. pepo — the quickest; eat by midwinter (delicata is its sweet, thin-skinned kin). Doesn't cure long.
- Spaghetti · 90 days · 6–12 lbs/plant — Stringy flesh forks into strands — a C. pepo on a mid clock.
- Kabocha · 95 days · 6–12 lbs/plant — C. maxima — dry, sweet, chestnut flesh (buttercup is its kin); a fine keeper.
- Butternut · 100 days · 8–15 lbs/plant — C. moschata — the solid-necked keeper; vine-borer resistant, stores all winter.
- Hubbard · 110 days · 10–25 lbs/plant — The big C. maxima storage squash — a long haul to a root-cellar giant.
🌱 Five Acres of Freedom — plan a year's food, map
your land to scale, and keep every homestead record. The numbers on
this page are the same ones the app plans with.
🍏 Download on the App Store
📱 On Android? Join the waitlist