If the squash is completely ripe and it is an acorn, sweet dumpling or delicata you could cook it the same day. The literature say that acorns, and delicatas do not need to be cured. But I find them sweeter if cured. If cooking the same day, it may need some sugar to help them out. The first time that I grew squash it was not on purpose. In 2004, I tossed some squash innards out in the flower bed out front as I thought the natural fertilizer would be good for the soil, plus best to keep decomposable stuff out of the landfill. It never occurred to me they would sprout. It was fun to watch them grow. I did not take care of them and let them do their own thing. I think they did well since it was on the north east side of the house and in Texas afternoon shade is a very good thing. I was so excited to see about 5 ripe acorn squash. I picked them all. I sliced one in half, and to my surprise, the squash did not seem like the correct color. I cooked it anyway. It did not taste good. I tossed the rest of the unripe squash out side under a large bush. Moral of this story, if you do not know if something is ripe, don't pick them all! This experience was so much fun, I decided to garden on purpose. In 2005, on the west side of the house, I planted sugar pumpkins and buttercups. I planted them in spring. All the squash died of the dreaded squash borer, but the sugar pumpkin did great. When the pumpkins turned orange, I picked them all. They tasted horrible. Here is another opportunity for a moral. First, if you messed up the first time, figure out why, and don't keep picking unripe squash! Oh yes, and don't pick them all. The other moral is, in Texas, full sun does not really mean, full sun all day! I moved my garden from the south west back side of the house which gets hot afternoon sun to the south east side of the house which gets shade after 2-3 pm depending how far away from house the bed is. I looked up how to figure out when winter squash are ripe. So geared up with that info,. I tried again for a fall harvest. Again, I planted buttercup and sugar pumpkin. This time, all the sugar pumpkins died due to heat, and lack of water. I somehow had the idea plants can take care of themselves. This is probably true, but not if you are growing them out of their native area, and not if your area is in an extreme drought as we were. Another moral, squash need to be watered, especially if one lives in Texas. The buttercup still got squash borer, but survived it. I think this is because in Texas fall crops just plain do better. Fruit has an easier time maturing in cool fall verses our inferno of a summer. The other reason I believe they did better was because, I did not yank them up when they got borer. I put soil over the vines in many places to encourage rooting. If the main plant dies the place beyond the new root should survive. Also, warm weather crops if planted in cool damp soil will get more critters. The critters are nature's way of eliminating sick plants so they will not make it to maturity, make seeds, and thus make more sick plants. If a plant gets critters, it is not suffering a pesticide deficiency. The usual problems are, Seed planted when soil is too cool, too wet, or just plan wrong time of year. I just read someplace that seeds started in a relatively dry soil do better. Spring growth is often sappy. Selecting the incorrect variety for your area. Believe me, planting seeds from northern catalog, sets a Texas gardener up for failure. I now select varieties listed in the seed savers exchange yearbook by southern gardeners. When purchasing catalog seeds, I select viney verses bushy crops. Seed catalogs try to be as vague as possible so they dont discourage folks from regions that certain seed varieties canÂt possibly do well, from wasting money on their seeds. For example California blackeye pea which is a bush plant, did very poorly. Texas longhorn cowpea, which has a 7 foot vine, did not seem to be bothered much in last year's drought. Baby blue hubbard which is bushy, died of borer. Anna Swartz hubbard has a long, long vine, did great. I believe this is because, deep roots come with a plant with long vines. I believe deep roots will help a plant survive extreme rain and frost better too. The roots go below the level of the wet, dry, hot or cold soil. We have been dumped on this year in Texas by lots and lots of rain. My pole beans did just fine. The leaves of the bush beans got full of holes. I won't be planting beans in spring anymore though. They don't have time to make many beans before it just gets too hot. Planting root crops in spring verses fall. Spring weather encourages seed development, and leafy growth verses root growth. Planting too close together. You know when someone stands too close to you, you feel like they are in your space, I think plants must feel that way too. It can be surprising how deep and wide roots grown. On this site, root development of vegetable crops, they show how deep the roots grow. If you don't have time to read the text, just scroll down to see the pictures. After reading this site, I often about double the suggested seed distances. Watering too much. I live in Texas, so in the heat of summer, I might see plants suffering from heat stress, but rarely see a bug. I usually only see bugs, when rain is more frequent (like spring and fall), or I goof up and water too much. "I believe" city water can kill beneficial microbes on the surface of the leaves; so I avoid getting foliage wet when hose watering. " I think" this is the reason rain does not seem to bother leaves like city water can. Plus when it rains, it tends to be cloudy, which protects the leaves from scorching. If you water too much the surface soil says wet so the roots have no need to go deep in search of water. Deep roots protect the plant in times of extreme weather. I could go on with things like this but I am way off topic. Personally, I think that squash grow better amongst the grass and weeds. I have seen volunteer squash in the back yard do way better than in mulched beds. The plants get more shade from the grass and have blades of grass to grab on to. I have observed a much greater harvest in my English peas when grass poked through thinning mulch verses mulched beds with no grass. I have taken soil temps in various circumstances. The soil is warmest in bare soil. It can be 5-10 degrees cooler in mulched soil. In beds where there is a living mulch of weeds and grass, it can be 3-5 degrees cooler than even the mulched beds. In Texas, this is a good thing. So moral here is, I plant squash on the edge of the beds and let the squash jump over the edge and wander around in the yard. Oh yes, one more thing to note. Last fall, I planted squash close to the house, as squash tend to wilt if there get too much Texas sun. That was something that I will never do again. The garden is on the south east side of the house. Squash like to grow toward the sun, so they grew out into the rest of the garden covering everything: my fall planted root crops, bush beans peas, and my tomatoes. They ran amuck! Moral here: Do not let your squash, squash your garden. Either grow them up a trellis or do like I do and plant them on the far edge and let them grow toward the sun, in my case east, away from the rest of the plants. Bush squash will tend to grow out in shorter distances in all directions, so give them room. I hope some of this helps out.

Delicata squash is a *must* *grow* for me each year. They are delicious and anyone I give them to always comes back and asks for more. They ripen to perfection by Oct 1st in the PNW and can be eaten immediately, filling the void while waiting for the Maximas to reach their peak. Vines are highly productive, 25 fruits per plant this year. I can cube them into dishes without worrying about the skin. They can be sliced and eaten raw if you're into that. They last much longer in storage than they get credit for. I can eat them into March when stored on a shelf in my unheated garage that never freezes. About mid-March they suddenly go dry, corky and flavorless, practically all at once. By that time I have plenty of well seasoned Maximas that are calling out to be eaten. If you have room to grow squashes, you have no excuse to not be growing these. Seriously, you gotta do it.

I harvested one Delicata yesterday. This being a warmer than average year I thought maybe they might be ready. It was terrible. I didn't even bother cooking it. I could tell by the taste, color and texture it was no good. The outside color seemed mature enough but looking again I found there was no orange on the skin. There should be some background pumpkiny orange patches. Same with the Acorns I have grown, those should have an orange patch where they sit on the ground. Anyway, my Delicata vines still have abundant green leaves and live vines, although they are in severe decline. The stem on the squash that I harvested was hard but still green. Live and learn, wait til the vines and all leaves are dead and there is orange on the squashes and the stems are grey and dry. October.

Hi folks, I am trying delicata squash for the first time this year and I'm confused about when to pic them. I have three similar to the picture. What do you think?