Vegetable · Cucurbitaceae
When to plant winter squashes
Grown for storage, so the fruit must ripen fully on the plant before the first frost.
Start seed indoors
3 weeks before
Counted from your last spring frost.
Plant out
2 weeks after
Counted from your last spring frost.
Sow direct
2 weeks after
Counted from your last spring frost.
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 winter squashes plantable anywhere.
- Start seed indoors 3 weeks before the last frost.
- Plant out 2 weeks after the last frost.
- Sow direct 2 weeks after the last frost.
- Expect 80–110 days to maturity, counted from sowing.
Getting the timing right
Work backwards: sow date plus days to maturity plus two weeks of curing must land before your first autumn frost. That constraint, not the spring date, is what rules this crop out in cold climates.
Frost tolerance
A light frost that kills the leaves will not ruin ripe fruit, but it stops any further ripening. Unripe squash does not store.
Classified as tender, with damage expected below 0°C (32°F)32°F (0°C).