If its like any other hard skinned squash you should wait until its stem is tan color and looks dry before picking. To store, you would dip it into a weak solution of water and chlorine bleach. This will kill any surface stuff that can cause mold. Careful handling too, as even though squash are quite hard, they still bruise easily.

It is a winter squash type, treat it as you would winter squashes.

I've never grown that particular variety of winter squash, but here's how I harvest and store butternut squash.

I wait until the stem turns brown and dries. Around here that's anywhere from late September to mid-October. The rind should be hard enough that you can't pierce it with your fingernail. I gave up on THAT testing method when I misjudged it, put a big hole in the rind with my fingernail and the squash rotted pretty quickly :-)

Cut them off the vine leaving about 1" of stem attached. I leave mine out in the garden for about a week (in the sun) to cure. If there is going to be a frost, cover them up with a frost cloth or a sheet, or bring them inside for the night. Before storage, I wash them gently with a very mild bleach solution (maybe a tablespoon of bleach in a gallon of water). I grow mine in a straw-mulched bed so they're not terribly dirty, but the bath gets the dried bits of leaves and straw off. Let them dry thoroughly. Ken is absolutely correct about them bruising easily (you wouldn't think so, but they do).

I store mine in a single layer in a shallow cardboard box on a layer of Styrofoam packing peanuts. This lets air circulate all around them and gives them a bit of a cushion. We usually eat our last butternut around Easter (you can tell the taste isn't the same, but the texture is fine), so we're pleased with our storage method.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the answers everyone. Malna, we have heavy clay soil that we're amending each year. It still needs quite a bit of work so next year I will try the straw mulch bed. When we put them in the cold room, we were planning on putting them on a shelf, single layer. Do you think that would work? Would we need to put a fan in there? Marg

Your cold room should work just fine. Temperature should be 50-55ݰF (10-13C) and can be 50-75% relative humidity. A little higher or lower on the temps is fine as long as they don't freeze. Air circulation is a good thing, so a small fan couldn't hurt, but may not be necessary.

I keep mine in our bedroom (and, yes, it's unheated, so it's about 50°F in the winter - that's why I have down comforters and a DH who has warm feet :-) but no fan or anything on them.

One thing you might do is when you go and get one to eat, remember to rotate the others in storage a quarter turn or so so they're not laying on the same side for a really long time.

Do try the straw. I've been doing that for two years now, and our hard packed limestone soil (where we didn't put in raised beds) is getting nice and fluffy and we've got tons of worms.

I just googled this, and it is also known and seed sold as "Red Kuri" - We grow this one fairly often but not this year, as we had a significant request for a different variety.

I'd keep an eye on the stem end, and when it turns more tan than green and starts to 'crack' - meaning not smooth any more - carefully break the stem from the plant. Even if the rest of the plant is looking awful with mildew and yellow leaves, we've found its better to leave the fruit attached until it turns tan, or it's going to freeze.

We pick them, careful to leave the stem on, knock off the dirt, and put them in a shaded, low humidity but good air circulation spot, like shelves at the rear of the greenhouse, temperatures 50 - 85ºF, on newspaper to 'cure' for a couple of weeks.

When they're cured, the stem is completely tan and dry. Then they can be stored elsewhere and will keep for some time. They will continue to sweeten up as they store.

I'd only cook and freeze the ones where the stem was broken off the fruit, which will happen in spite of your best efforts, or those that you had to pick early because a freeze was coming.

Here, we're picking winter squash now, mostly because of mildew and squash bugs.

Just like I posted above

Well, let me try to add something antidotal from personal experience then, so others won't make the same mistake I did. Winter squash is a major food item in our house, its nutritious, great tasting, and we like the subtle differences between varieties. I also sell in the market and sell a few dozen to a bakery for organic pies - this Red Kuri is one they like, but I find it a bit sweet. We set out anywhere between 40 and 80 plants. The smaller ones we grow on trellises, the larger ones in rows separated by strips of black woven weed barrier.

To store them, we have a 500 sq foot room that has windows on the south and double-wall polycarbonate roofing on the south, and is solid construction on the north and east. I have a series of shelves all along this north wall, 8 foot high, 4 foot deep and 2 feet between shelves which I line with cardboard and newspaper. This is where we store cured onions and winter squash. Its bright, airy, not very humid since we live in a desert, and things keep remarkably well. In the winter, the temperature won't go below 40º at night because of automatic heaters, or above 85º with roof openers.

I can walk by and see if anything is going off. Every few weeks, we inspect them a bit closer, particularly as the winter finishes and spring starts. A few will always go off - say 5%. We routinely keep onions and squash until the next May. By then, there aren't many left anyway.

Two years ago, on the advice I found here I tried dipping the squash in a weak solution of water and chlorine bleach. With no measurements given I used a cup of chlorine in a deep laundry sink, call it 20 gallons. It took me an hour or so, but I carried the squash two by two, put them in the sink, went and got another two from the other side of the room, lifted the wet ones out, put the dry ones in, took the wet ones back to the shelves to dry, and grabbed another two. So they were in the chlorine dip less than a minute, and dry on the shelves, with the newspaper under them, in less than 5 minutes.

That seemed to breach the natural wax coating of the squash I'd harvested that year, shelves and shelves of the things, well over 100 separate squash, all different varieties, at least 300 lbs. All of them were rotten between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so they only lasted 2-3 months.

So, my problem was using my own idea of what "weak" means, how long a "dip" is, not getting precise measurements and times.

Yet for 15 years we've kept them, regularly, until April-May, just by knocking off the dirt.

I attribute our success far more to the bright, airy, dry environment we store them in. Even still, those picked with a green stem will not last very long, 2 months at the top, so those we eat first. And its best to just cook, can/freeze immediately, those whose stem has broken off.

I'm far from an expert on growing winter squash, there is a tremendous amount of experience, expertise, lore, regional differences, and so on that I know enough about to know that I actually know very little about winter squash. But from my experience, if you wish to dip your squash in chlorine bleach, I'd suggest you don't just 'wing it', like I did, and get precise times, temperatures, water quality parameters, and dilutions. I imagine the commercial producers who ship the stuff all over the world would know.

Ever see a squash like this? Its next to the buttercup, and both were from the same batch of seeds.

{{gwi:881056}}

David52; Thanks for the informative answer. I just checked the squash and most of the 'handles' are turning a tan colour. Guess it will soon be time to pick them. Our nights are getting down to 8C. now, there's quite a chill in the air in the mornings. I was planning on dipping some, as malna said she does, and leaving some natural. We'll see if that really does make a difference. Thanks again. Marg