Uchiki Kuri
The most reliable pumpkin for Irish conditions, and the one to choose if you only have room for a single plant.
Also sold as Red Kuri or onion squash, Uchiki Kuri is a Japanese variety that ripens earlier and on less heat than any of the big orange carving types. The fruit are small, teardrop shaped and a deep scarlet orange, usually somewhere between 1kg and 2kg, with dense chestnut-flavoured flesh and a skin thin enough to eat once roasted. In a cool damp Irish summer, when a carving pumpkin is still sitting green in October, this is the one that has already coloured up and cured.
Quick facts
- Botanical name
- Cucurbita pepo and Cucurbita maxima
- Type
- Open pollinated
- Category
- Onion squash, small trailing
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Hardiness
- Tender, no frost tolerance
- In Ireland
- Cloche or fleece helps
- Germination
- 5 to 10 days at 18 to 25C
- Sowing depth
- 2cm
- Spacing
- 150cm apart, 180cm between rows
- Position
- Full sun
- Containers
- Needs open ground
- Sowing to harvest
- 15 to 22 weeks
- Harvest
- September to October
Sowing and harvest calendar for Uchiki Kuri
Months shaded below are the reliable windows for Irish conditions.
Where to buy Uchiki Kuri pumpkin seeds in Ireland
Irish suppliers that stock this, so postage stays domestic and seed arrives in time to sow. These are plain links, not paid placements.
Order online
- Brown Envelope Seeds Irish Organic seed saved in West Cork Grows and saves its own certified organic seed in West Cork, so the varieties are already adapted to Irish conditions. Visit Brown Envelope Seeds , Co. Cork
- Quickcrop Irish Listed with sowing months, ships nationwide Ballymote based, lists sowing and harvest months per product and ships across Ireland. Visit Quickcrop , Co. Sligo
- Fruit Hill Farm Irish Certified organic seed from Bantry Bantry based supplier to Ireland's commercial organic growers. Certified organic and biodynamic seed, mail order only. Visit Fruit Hill Farm , Co. Cork
Why it suits Ireland
Every problem with growing pumpkins here comes back to heat, and Uchiki Kuri needs less of it than the alternatives. It sets fruit readily in cool weather, the small fruit fill quickly rather than spending September trying to reach a size they will never get to, and the skin hardens early. In a good year the first fruit colour in late August, which in this country is close to a guarantee.
The other Irish advantage is scale. A carving pumpkin plant takes over a bed to produce one or two fruit you mostly look at. This one takes less room, produces a genuine crop of food, and stores through the winter.
Flavour is the reason it keeps its place in Irish organic catalogues rather than being treated as a novelty. It is sweet, dry and nutty rather than watery, and because the skin is thin you can halve it, scoop the seed and roast it without peeling.
Growing notes
Sow one seed per 9cm pot in late April, on its edge, at 18 to 25C, and plant out after the last frost into ground enriched with well-rotted manure. Allow about 1.5m each way.
It trails rather than bushes, but not as far as the big types, so it can be steered around the plant in a spiral or trained up a strong support with the fruit slung in netting. The fruit are light enough for that to work, which is not true of most pumpkins.
Slide a tile under each fruit once it is fist sized. Cut in September or October with a long stalk, cure the fruit somewhere warm and dry for a fortnight, then store cool. Cured fruit hold well into the new year, though the flavour is at its best a month or two after harvest rather than straight off the plant.
Common questions
Is Uchiki Kuri a pumpkin or a squash?
Botanically it is Cucurbita maxima, the same species as most of the big blue-grey winter squashes and the giant competition pumpkins, so calling it either is defensible. In practice it is sold as a winter squash in Ireland and as a pumpkin in Japan. It is not a carving pumpkin: the fruit are too small and the flesh too solid, so grow it to eat rather than to hollow out.
How many fruit will one plant give?
Three to five in a reasonable Irish summer, occasionally more, which is a lot more than you get from a single carving pumpkin plant. Because each one is only a kilo or two, a household can genuinely eat them all. Let the plant carry four and pinch out the tips beyond that in early August so they finish properly.
Can I save seed from Uchiki Kuri?
Yes, it is open pollinated so the seed grows true, which is one of its practical advantages over the F1 pumpkins. The catch is that all Cucurbita maxima varieties cross freely with each other, so if you also grow Crown Prince or a giant type nearby you will get an unpredictable hybrid. Save seed only if it is the one maxima variety in your garden or in your neighbours'.
More pumpkins to consider
Crown Prince F1
AGMF1 hybrid / Winter squash, large trailing
Grow this one to eat. The flavour is in a different class and a cured fruit will still be good next spring.
Growing notes and stockistsJack of All Trades F1
F1 hybrid / Carving pumpkin, trailing
The carving pumpkin to grow if you want a proper orange lantern for Halloween rather than something to eat.
Growing notes and stockistsAtlantic Giant
Open pollinated / Giant exhibition, very large trailing
The one to grow if the goal is size rather than dinner. Enormous fun, enormous space, and a lot of feeding.
Growing notes and stockists