GardenWinter Squash variety
Jester Winter Squash
✓ In your garden
Jester is a delicata winter squash, ready in about 95 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
Jester 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 Jester 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.
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Want the full 10/50/90% odds + nearest stations? Open the frost tool →When to plant Jester 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 early Aug, well before your typical frost (~late Oct).
- Plant seeds outside
- early May – early May
- Growing
- early May – early Aug
- Picking
- early Aug – mid Aug
Typical dates for zone 6b — set your zone or ZIP above for yours.
Growing Jester — 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.
Jester winter squash at a glance
| Type | Delicata |
|---|---|
| Grows as | Bush (determinate) |
| Days to ripe | 95 days after you plant it outside |
| Color | Bicolor |
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.
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Common questions about Jester
How long does Jester take to grow?
About 95 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 Jester?
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.