How to Grow Delicata Squash
The first step to growing delicata squash involves sowing the seeds directly into the ground. Learn how to grow delicata squash with help from an avid home gardener and garden teacher in this free video clip.
Hello, my name is Jessica Craven. I'm a Master Gardener and I have my certification in Permaculture Design. We're going to talk about how to grow delicata squash. First, you just want to sow the seeds directly into the ground. You'll sprinkle some soil above them, if you want to, add some mulch over it. And after a little while, your squash as mine here will start to germinate and grow. You'll keep watering it; if you want to, make some compost tea, really easy to do; add about a cup of compost to a gallon of water. You can tie a old sock and put the compost in there, let it brew for about three days so the nutrients can really get into that water. Water your squash. The squash will grow fairly vigorously; as it starts to grow, if you want to prevent weeds from growing around it, you can put some cardboard, lay it around. Put some, or put some more mulch around, that'll prevent weeds from growing, so that the squash is not competing with other things. Now, something you want to do is once the squash starts to appear and grow is sometimes the squash will start to rot if it gets very moist. So, when you're watering, you want to make sure that you're watering the plant and not the squash itself. Another thing you can do is you can put something on the ground so that your squash is not touching the dirt. You can put something like a coffee can lid or a piece of metal down or in my case I can lay it here on this piece of rock, that sort of thing so it doesn't get moist and rot. Now, how you know your squash is ripe is as it's growing, it'll have green stripes on it. As the stripes start to fade and your squash becomes creamy or white in color along with the orange spots, you'll know that it's ready to harvest. And shortly after that, you want to make certain that you eat it. This is not the type of squash that you store. So, my name is Jessica Craven and I hope you enjoy your delicata squash.