Crop lessons · Cucurbits (squash family)
Lagenaria siceraria · Cucurbitaceae (cucumber family)
Long squash, also sold as opo squash or bottle gourd, is a fast, vigorous gourd vine whose young, pale-green fruits are cooked like summer squash. UF/IFAS says Florida's warm climate suits it in backyards as well as on farms. The two things to get right are a strong trellis and early picking: once the fruit matures and dries it is no longer edible.1
| Region | Months on the UF/IFAS calendar |
|---|---|
| North Florida | April transplant with care · May transplant with care · June transplant with care · July transplant with care |
| Central Florida | March transplant with care · April transplant with care · May transplant with care · June transplant with care · July transplant with care |
| South Florida | January transplant with care · February transplant with care · September transplant with care · October transplant with care · November transplant with care · December transplant with care |
Months follow UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions, "What to plant by month"; "transplant with care" is their wording for crops that resent root disturbance. Not sure of your region? Find your county.
| How to start | direct seed, or transplant 15- to 20-day-old seedlings |
|---|
EDIS HS1272 says the crop grows very quickly in Florida after seeding or transplanting and prefers warm, sunny sites out of strong wind. An archived 1994 UF/IFAS fact sheet on cucuzzi, the same species, suggests growing it the way you would pole beans but with plenty of room.
| Sun | Warm, sunny site |
|---|---|
| Water | Irrigate through the season for a good crop; the plants like moist but well-drained, fertile soil. |
| Fertilizer | UF/IFAS has no standard fertilizer recommendation for long squash. Until there is one, HS1272 points growers to the commercial cucumber rates: 150 lb nitrogen per acre, and 120, 100 or 80 lb per acre each of phosphate and potash for very low, low or medium soil test levels. These are field rates, not home-garden amounts. |
Vines can reach 30 feet and climb by tendrils, so a trellis is needed for a good yield of well-shaped fruit. Pinching the vine tips once stems are 6 to 8 feet long pushes the plant to make fruiting side branches and set fruit sooner. Male and female flowers are separate on the same plant and usually white.
Pick fruit young for the kitchen; the archived cucuzzi fact sheet says around 10 inches long, while the fruit is light green with a smooth skin. Fruit left to mature and dry is not edible, although dried hard shells have long been used as containers, floats and instruments. Most long squash grown in Florida has long fruit, though the species also includes round, bottle- and club-shaped forms.
suited with care
Neither source names long squash. FAO's cucumber entry says squash, zucchini and melons suit media beds because of their large roots and need a lot of nitrogen and potassium (p. 173); this rating rests on that cucurbit-group statement. FAO gives no guidance on 30-foot gourd vines.
Your county extension office and its Florida Master Gardeners can fill these in for your garden.
Every fact above is restated in our own words from these documents, written 2026-11-02. Independent of the University of Florida.