GardenWinter Squash variety
Night Shift Acorn Winter Squash
✓ In your garden
Night Shift Acorn is an acorn winter squash, ready in about 95 days. Roast the halves — acorn is the one winter squash you should NOT cure, so use it within a couple of months. It’s a long-season, space-hungry vine; plant after frost.
“A ribbed winter squash for roasting — best used within a couple of months, not cured.”
Growing basics — shared by every winter squash
Night Shift Acorn 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 Night Shift Acorn good for?
- Roasting & soupSweet, dense flesh. Great
- Winter storageA shorter keeper — use it first. Skip it
- Eaten rawHard-shelled — it needs cooking. 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 Night Shift Acorn 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 Night Shift Acorn — 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.
Night Shift Acorn winter squash at a glance
| Type | Acorn |
|---|---|
| Grows as | Bush (determinate) |
| Days to ripe | 95 days after you plant it outside |
| Color | Green |
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 Night Shift Acorn
How long does Night Shift Acorn 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 Night Shift Acorn?
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.