GardenWinter Squash variety
Marmalade Kabocha Winter Squash
✓ In your garden
Marmalade Kabocha is a kabocha winter squash, ready in about 100 days. Let it mature to a hard rind and cure it in the sun, and it stores for months — roast it, mash it, or make soup. It’s a long-season, space-hungry vine; plant after frost.
“A hard-shelled winter squash that cures and stores for months.”
Growing basics — shared by every winter squash
Marmalade Kabocha 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 Marmalade Kabocha good for?
- Roasting & soupSweet, dense flesh. Great
- Winter storageCured, it keeps for months. Great
- Eaten rawHard-shelled — it needs cooking. Skip it
From how it grows — kitchens vary.
What Marmalade Kabocha is known for
Johnny's Selected Seeds describes this as:
- keeps a long time after picking
That is the company selling the seed, describing its own product. True, and worth weighing as such.
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Want the full 10/50/90% odds + nearest stations? Open the frost tool →When to plant Marmalade Kabocha 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 – late Aug
Typical dates for zone 6b — set your zone or ZIP above for yours.
Growing Marmalade Kabocha — the things that trip people up
- Let it ripen fully on the vine — a rind you can’t dent with a thumbnail — then cut with a bit of stem and cure in the sun a week or two before storing.
- 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.
Marmalade Kabocha winter squash at a glance
| Type | Kabocha |
|---|---|
| Grows as | Bush (determinate) |
| Days to ripe | 100 days after you plant it outside |
| Color | Orange |
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 Marmalade Kabocha
How long does Marmalade Kabocha take to grow?
About 100 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 Marmalade Kabocha?
Cure it in the sun for a week or two after harvest, then keep it somewhere cool and dry (not the fridge). Well-cured winter squash keeps for months.