Vegetable · Cucurbitaceae
When to plant spaghetti squash
Ripens faster than most winter squash, which makes it the one to choose where the season is short. The flesh separates into strands when cooked.
Start seed indoors
4 weeks before
Counted from your last spring frost.
Plant out
2 weeks after
Counted from your last spring frost.
Days to maturity
90-110
From planting out to a first picking.
Those weeks become real dates once you name a place.
Timing, in frost-relative terms
Seed packets rarely give calendar dates, because a date that suits one latitude is wrong at another. They give offsets from the last spring frost instead, and those offsets are what make spaghetti squash plantable anywhere.
- Start seed indoors 4 weeks before the last frost.
- Plant out 2 weeks after the last frost.
- Expect 90–110 days to maturity, counted from planting out.
Getting the timing right
Start indoors four weeks before the last frost and plant out two weeks after. Harvest when the skin has turned deep yellow and resists a thumbnail.
Frost tolerance
Killed at 0C. Harvest before the first frost and cure for a week or two, after which it keeps for several months.
Classified as tender, with damage expected below 0°C (32°F)32°F (0°C).