Waltham Butternut Squash Seeds | Curcurbita moschata | Certified Organic
A beloved heirloom butternut variety.
No garden crop soothes the soul like butternut squash. Its smooth, sweet, and nutty flesh entices as it bakes in the oven. For this hallmark experience of autumn we are indebted to insurance-man-turned-farmer Charles Leggett, who developed the Waltham Butternut variety in Massachusetts during the mid-1940s. Leggett combined the dense, easy-to-peel flesh of old gooseneck types with the flavor and texture of the best eating squashes. The result? Pure comfort food, straight from the garden.
Waltham is also one of the best keepers: if well cured and kept somewhere cool and dry, your butternuts will keep their eating quality well into spring.
Direct sow after frost, or start indoors 2-3 weeks earlier. Transplant in hills spaced 6' apart, 3 plants per hill, or in rows 36" apart. Plants can grow 6' or more, so give plenty of space to take over. Keep watered for the first couple weeks, and then—in most years—you can forget about them until October. Be sure to harvest before frost: once nipped, the fruits develop soft spots and quickly spoil in storage. Harvest when squash are buff-coloured with no trace of green. Cure somewhere warm and dry for a week, then store in a cool, dry, dark place.
Days to Germination 7-10 days
Days to Maturity 70 days
Planting Depth 1"
Spacing in Row 24-36"
Spacing Between Rows 36-48"
Height at Maturity 24"
Width at Maturity 4'
Sun Preference Full Sun
Artwork by Lora Shelley. Lora works with the soft tones and textures of pastels to create this cozy winter kitchen scene. It embodies the wholesome pleasures of house cats, Hoosier cabinets, and the warmth of home-cooked butternut squash.
About Hudson Valley Seed Company
They are a values-driven seed company that practices and celebrates responsible seed production and stewardship. Hudson Valley are best known for their beautiful artist-design seed packs (Art Packs) that appeal to gardeners, gift buyers, and lovers of art and nature.
These Art Packs, most fundamentally, tell stories. Hudson Valley challenges artists to convey in a manner that is fully their own, the history and meaning of the seed variety contained in each pack. These stories were once integral to traditional societies-stories of seeds were often origin stories for entire communities and peoples, and the lore and beliefs that accumulated around seed varieties reflected the nearly familial way in which gardeners and farmers regarded their crops. Our society is, by and large, no longer connected to plants this way. But we like to think these Art Packs help to stitch our fragmented world back together: useful seeds, evocative art, both equally valuable to our experience of being human.