GardenWinter Squash variety
Bush Delicata Winter Squash
✓ In your garden
Bush Delicata is a delicata winter squash, ready in about 80 days. Its skin is thin, sweet, and edible (no peeling), but it’s a shorter keeper than most winter squash. It’s a long-season, space-hungry vine; plant after frost.
“A thin-skinned winter squash you can eat skin and all — a short keeper.”
Growing basics — shared by every winter squash
Bush Delicata grows like any other winter squash. The full picture — how deep to plant, spacing, feeding, pests, harvest — lives on the Winter Squash page so it's maintained in one place.
- Sun
- Full Sun
- Spacing (in row)
- 36–48 in
- Row spacing
- 72–96 in
- Planting depth
- 0.75–2 in
- Soil pH
- 6–6.5
- Water
- Moderate
What is Bush Delicata good for?
- Roasting & soupSweet, dense flesh. Great
- Winter storageA shorter keeper — use it first. Skip it
- Eaten rawSkin’s edible; still best cooked. Skip it
From how it grows — kitchens vary.
—
Want the full 10/50/90% odds + nearest stations? Open the frost tool →When to plant Bush Delicata in your zone
Zone 6bGreenhouse or cover on: your start slides ~4 weeks earlier and your harvest stretches ~3 weeks later (shown striped).
Planting seeds straight in the ground only works where the season's long and warm — most gardeners start seeds indoors or buy young plants, or you'd pick your first tomato right as frost hits.
Comfortable — first ripe fruit lands around mid Jul, well before your typical frost (~late Oct).
- Plant seeds outside
- early May – early May
- Growing
- early May – mid Jul
- Picking
- mid Jul – early Aug
Typical dates for zone 6b — set your zone or ZIP above for yours.
Growing Bush Delicata — the things that trip people up
- Let it ripen fully on the vine, then cut it with a bit of stem — but skip curing: acorn and delicata types don’t need it and keep only a couple of months, so use them first.
- These are long-season, space-hungry vines. Give them a long warm summer, rich soil, and room to run, and watch for squash bugs and vine borers.
Bush Delicata winter squash at a glance
| Type | Delicata |
|---|---|
| Grows as | Bush (determinate) |
| Days to ripe | 80 days after you plant it outside |
| Color | Striped |
Extra fields from seed-catalog listings and university growing guides. Days to ripe and disease resistance shift with your climate and seed source — double-check with your local extension office before you buy.
Save it and the plant lights up — kept right here in your browser, no account needed. It's the first thing GardenTrack starts remembering for you.
Kept on this device. Want it safe if your browser clears or you switch phones? Back it up free — just your email, no password.
GardenTrack is in beta now — it'll remember every plant you add here and tell you what to do and when. One email, no spam.
Common questions about Bush Delicata
How long does Bush Delicata take to grow?
About 80 days to a fully mature fruit — a long-season crop, so start it early enough to beat your first fall frost.
How do I store Bush Delicata?
Don’t bother curing acorn or delicata types — they store only a couple of months. Keep them somewhere cool and dry and use them before your longer-keeping squash.