Pumpkin Australian Butter Seeds

Cucurbita maxima

Australian Butter is a rare Australian heirloom Pumpkin producing substantial fruits with smooth tan-coloured skin and rich, deep orange flesh. Dense, sweet and full flavoured, it is an excellent eating pumpkin with particularly good qualities for baking and roasting.

Fruits can reach approximately 7 kg and contain firm flesh that develops a rich sweetness when cooked. It is excellent roasted, baked or mashed and works beautifully in soups, curries, pies and other pumpkin dishes. The dense texture also makes it useful where a pumpkin that holds its shape during cooking is preferred.

As an Australian heirloom, Australian Butter forms part of the diverse collection of pumpkin varieties selected and maintained by generations of growers for local conditions, flavour and usefulness in the kitchen. Its combination of eating quality, generous fruit size and good keeping ability makes it a particularly worthwhile variety for the home garden.

The mature fruits store well when properly cured, allowing the harvest to be enjoyed long after the vines have finished producing. Leave pumpkins on the vine until the skin has hardened and the stems begin to dry for the best storage potential.

Pumpkins originated in the Americas and have been cultivated for thousands of years. Cucurbita maxima includes an extraordinary range of forms, from compact culinary pumpkins to some of the largest fruits in the vegetable world.

Approximately 10 seeds per packet

When to Plant (Australia)

Tropics: During the warm season, avoiding the wettest periods where disease pressure is high
Subtropics: Spring to summer
Mild climates: Spring to early summer after frost
Cold climates: Spring after all danger of frost; start indoors where the growing season is short

Planting / Sowing

Sow approximately 20–30 mm deep directly into warm, prepared soil after all danger of frost has passed, or raise seedlings for transplanting once conditions are reliably warm.

Grow in full sun in rich, fertile, well-drained soil. Allow approximately 1–2 m between plants and provide plenty of additional room for the vigorous vines to spread.

Keep plants consistently watered during active growth, flowering and fruit development, watering deeply at soil level where possible rather than regularly wetting the foliage.

Harvest once the skin has hardened and developed its mature tan colour and the stem begins to dry. Cut the fruit from the vine with a generous section of stem attached.

For longer storage, cure mature pumpkins in a warm, dry, well-ventilated position before moving them to a cool, dry storage area.

Maturity: approximately 100 days.

Due to quarantine restrictions, TAS has an 800g limit per each seed variety and WA has a 10,000 seeds limit per variety.