Waltham butternut Winter Squash
Curcurbis Moschata

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
20-50 seeds per packet

Days to Maturity: 95 days
Plant Spacing: 1 per square foot, vining
Sunlight Requirements: 6 - 14 hours
Look Out For: worms in growing tips
Harvest Notes: harvest butternuts when plant is mostly dead and the fruit has turned pale orange
Annual

Butternut Squash can be pretty easy to grow in South Florida but the vining plants do take up a lot of space and each plant only makes a few fruit, so you may want to plant these cuties outside of your raised beds or at least on the edge so they can spill out of the bed and take advantage of the extra space.

Butternut squashes can be harvested young and green like a summer squash or be left on the vine to turn hard skinned and light orange, which is what qualifies them as a “winter squash”. If you do harvest it as a mature winter squash the flavor will be improved if you let the fruit “cure” in a cool dark part of your home for about 3 months before eating.