Guatemalan Green Ayote Seeds, Tropical Moschata Heirloom

A rare Guatemalan landrace ayote, vine borer resistant, heat tolerant, and found in almost no U.S. catalogs.

🛡️ Vine borer resistance: Excellent, the solid stems of Cucurbita moschata
The moschata group is the one that matters in a Kansas July. Solid, dense stems that vine borer larvae struggle to tunnel, and genuine tolerance for heat and humidity. Why species predicts survival here. resist the squash vine borer that kills most common pumpkins.

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📖 Read our complete growing guide for this variety →

What is ayote? Ayote is the Central American word for squash, from the Nahuatl ayotli. It is used across Guatemala and its neighbors for several winter squash, most often Cucurbita moschata, the same species as butternut and calabaza. This page is the Guatemalan green ayote, a round to slightly flattened landrace with mottled green skin. Full guide to ayote, calabaza, auyama and zapallo →

Guatemalan Green Ayote is a Central American moschata landrace, a true working variety selected by Guatemalan home gardeners for generations. "Ayote" is the regional word for this kind of squash, and this particular one is almost impossible to find in U.S. seed catalogs. If you want something genuinely rare with real cultural roots, this is it.

The fruit is round to slightly flattened with mottled green skin, and this is the unusual part: the flesh is green rather than orange. The flavour has the sweet richness of a good butternut with something tropical behind it. Because this is a true landrace and not a uniform cultivar, the population varies quite a bit in shape, size, ripening time and how green the flesh comes out, and some fruit land closer to pale orange. That variability is part of what you are buying. It is used across Central American cooking, in stews, sweet dishes and traditional preparations.

Like everything in our catalog, it's Cucurbita moschata, which means vine borer resistance is built into the genetics. Thick fibrous stems block SVB larvae. In Kansas, where vine borer pressure peaks June through July, moschata is the difference between harvest and loss. Vine borer resistance is kind of our thing at Autumn Prairie Pumpkins, and Guatemalan Green Ayote is one of the rarest and most culturally interesting varieties that delivers it.

Will it ripen before frost? Guatemalan Green Ayote needs 120 to 130 days from sowing, and the landrace ripens unevenly, so treat it as a long season variety. In a typical Newton, Kansas Zone 6b season the first fall frost arrives between October 10 and 20, so sow by about May 24 to finish with a two week cushion. In Kansas we would start it indoors three to four weeks early rather than direct sowing it. Planting later, or gardening in a different zone? Check your own planting window.