OK, my first year trying this as well. I won't be as verbose as with my jicama post. Same weather issues obviously.

I picked one out on Valentine's Day at the grocery store that had a visible shoot coming out, and picked up another one a few weeks later that had no shoot. The one with the shoot grew immediately under my lights in the basement. The other one sat on my kitchen counter for about a month before a little sprout came out.

Out to the greenhouse in April, outside around Memorial Day. One is in the ground, one in a large barrel planter. Both have made vines about 8 to 10 feet long, resembling a cucumber of melon vine more or less. No sign of any flowers at this point, and I doubt I will see any either, but I think some of this is due to my sub-artic year without a summer. Heck, I doubt that the water in our numerous inland lakes even got over about 60 degrees this summer -- brrrr! So, you know Chayote isn't happy.

I have heard that they grow from a tuberous root that is perennial, so I am going to let the potted one dry out in the greenhouse in October, cut off the top, and put the whole pot in my basement over the winter to see if it will survive for next year.

Thank You!! I posted an answer to your jicama post also. I will be planting in a 20 gallon tub type container most likely. If we have some warmer weather in 2010 your overwintered root should give you a pretty good harvest. Did you find any bug or disease bothered the plants?

DL

No, no insect or disease problems of any kind. Looks very healthy. Just no sign of anything resembling a flower bud at this point.

Chayote is a tropical plant; It needs short days to flower and is a very large vine taking a lot of space to grow. Like all cucurbits it has male and female blossoms,and is insect pollinated, mostly by bumble bees. Most plants I've seen are grown on a large overhead trellis and are harvested by hand from under the vines. The whole fruit is used for seed and the plant is reputed to be very productive and long lived,in the tropic. Have fun!

Before moving to Wisconsin, I lived in SoCal for a lot of years, and grew chayote in both San Jose & San Diego. At the time, the UC Extension was really pushing farmers to grow it, so they had a lot of literature on its culture. Sadly, I've looked into their system since, and could no longer find it listed. Doesn't mean it's not there, though... might be worth a phone call.

To start chayote, allow it to begin sprouting, then plant the whole fruit at a 45 degree angle, large end down. About half of the fruit should be buried, with the rest exposed. Sprouts will appear fairly quickly. If started indoors, these can become spindly; if so, cut them back a little. You can transplant these outdoors at the same time you would plant other warm-weather crops.

Be careful to avoid damage to the root system during transplanting; in San Jose, I used a large fiber pot (recycled from a greenhouse) and cut the sides away carefully after placing it in the hole. Once the roots get established, the plant will probably respond by sending one or more stronger shoots - these should be thinned to one or two, and allowed to grow.

Planted in the ground, they require a fairly large area of soil which will not be disturbed. The root system (other than the main root) is fairly shallow, and spreads out quite a bit. The ground in that area should not be allowed to dry out. I covered the root zone with a thick layer of leaves & grass clippings, which I added to constantly. As the leaves at the bottom began to break down, the chayote sent roots up into them; I found them up to 6-8 feet away from the stem.

I grew mine on a horizontal trellis, consisting of a 2 X 4" framework 6 feet tall, with steel fencing rolled across the top & nailed down. The top was 20' X 10'. Two plants were 8 feet apart, each centered 6 feet from the edge. Use training strings to get the shoots up to the top, then let them run.

As Matita stated, the vines are very large & extremely well branched; full grown, they covered the entire trellis easily, ran over the fence into the neighbor's shrubbery, and ran up an additional 10 feet of string that I ran between the trellis & my house. They would make an excellent dense cover for a large arbor... and very interesting when covered with squash.

The vines do not flower until September, when days approach 12 hours in length. Buds begin to appear in the leaf axils of new growth, so the vines should not be trimmed at this time. There will be a female flower & a cluster of small male flowers at each new leaf - over the entire vine! Provided that these are pollinated (and bees love them) the yield can be heavy. In California, I had 30-50 per plant the first year.

The plants are perennial in areas where the ground does not freeze. The dead vines should be cut off after frost kills them, and the crown protected by some form of insulation. The roots should be heavily mulched. When the weather warms, rake back the mulch to allow the soil to warm... it can be replaced when the new shoots emerge.

If you can over-winter chayote successfully, the yield in successive years can be astounding. My 3-year-old vines produced over 100 squash per plant!

One last note. Some supermarket chayote are hybrids, propagated vegetatively. Since the fruits you plant are the result of pollination, the squash you get may - or may not - resemble the originals. They will be good, though.

Update -- I do see what I believe are tiny flower bud clusters forming, but there is no way they will make it here. We could have frost any time now. Better luck in a future year, although the odds of EVER getting one are really slim. Mostly just a novelty project. The vines themselves are pretty, though, and seem less troubled by disease and insect problems than regular squash. No signs of any powdery mildew, for example, whereas all of the others are getting a bad case of it now (although they now also have squash).

not as easy to grow and get fruit from as might appear i live in sub-tropics where i find it needs those long hot days and lost of sun and shorter warm night, but they need lots of water to produce we have had one growing now for 2 years (in the winter months her they can die right back in mild winters they hang on a bit but do little) into 3rd year now. i'm a water miser so plants produce on rain and little other help that's how it is no good knocking your head against a brick wall trying to keep something going when water needs to be conserved.

so this one has given us 1 piece of fruit from a good rainy season, my reckoning they need in the vicinity of 10 litres of water per mature plant minimum. so not worth the bother for me when they are cheap enough in the shops. don't seem to suffer the same bugs as the cuce's do.

this season of yours may be too short for any fruit but if you keep the root viable in the ground and it comes away early next growing season and with lots of water you might do well?

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

We attempted to grow two chayote vines this year. Started them from grocery store chayotes and placed them on opposing sides of a porch/trellis/arbor type structure. That was in the springs. We waited until they sprouted and planted them at an angle, leaving part of the seed out as Dennis and zeedman described above. Only one of the vines took off, and by took off, I mean TOOK OFF! It is now very beautifully trellising the whole porch and growing very prolifically. I believe that the reason the second plant did not do much was inadequate watering. We placed two vines since we read somewhere that they need another different plant for proper pollination. I hope this is not true. Well, two days after the vernal equinox and still no flowers, but we are expecting some soon.

Stuffed mirlitons (the french New Orleans word for chayote) is a holiday delicacy that is enjoyed in my partner's culture/cuisine, so we hope to get some by late November! If we get them in December it is still OK, we'll just have them for Christmas. We are also eager to get a surplus of them so we can try pickled whole baby mirlitons, and also chayote relish. We planted ours as a perennial, and dug a very nice big hole, with all sorts of amendments. This is because we are also hoping to harvest part of the root, at some point. Maybe not the first year though.

Very interesting to read everybody's experiences and we will report if and when we get flowers and fruit.

Hi I live in Virginia also. I always thought about growing some,but never
have. I have a filipino friend who buys his Chayote in the Asian store,
in early spring or summer. He plants them in a pot, when they sprout,
he transplant into garden..He would harvest the Chayotes in the fall.

We were really excited last night when we discovered a female flower on the large chayote vine! woooohooooo!!!!

Now I guess if it grows and forms a squash (it has a tiny squash but I have seen those fall out from other types of squash when there is no pollination) it must mean pollination is happening within the one plant. We are keeping our fingers crossed. I will report, since most people would prefer single chayote vines in their property, unless you have acres of land....it would be good to know if pollination happens with just one plant. We will know soon.

I'm a bit confused. I have a chayote that's already sprouted, but the sprout is on the big end - the end that's supposed to be planted toward the ground, right? So I plant that green sprout facing down, and with the top, skinny end of the fruit sticking out of the ground? Will it seek out light and redirect itself upwards, or will it just die off, while sending other shoots up through the top?

Oops, I also forgot to ask... I just received the fruits from a relative who's growing the vines. I was told that around here in Northern California, now is the time to plant them. It seems awfully cold here right now (well, just in the last week, really - temps dropped like 20-25 degrees in the course of a week) and soon we'll be moving into the winter months. I think our first frost date is sometime in late November, so if I do plant them soon, are they likely to make it? We don't get hard freezes here, just light frosts that are relatively infrequent.

If I don't decide to plant now, should I pot up the fruits in something like 1 gallon containers or something and then keep them indoors through winter for a spring planting? Will that even work? I don't have grow lights, so any light they'd receive would be natural daylight.

This is my first year growing mirlitons. I purchased the mirlitons in March '09, put them in a brown bag until they sprouted. I then moved them to buckets, it was too cold to put in the ground. After several weeks they were transplanted to raised bed outside next to the fence.

They grew along the fence from April until September. I almost killed them with too much water. They required very little water.

In September they started to flower, now I am harvesting mirlitons. They look better than I expected, pretty green and very few blemishes. We will have stuffed mirlitons this Sunday. I love it.

It has gotten a bit wet here in GA and I am currently dealing with slugs(they will destroy the plant).......Starting to see some progress with a bait purchased from gardens alive.

spaghetina,

Plant with the sprouted end under ground and very little of the small end above the ground, on an angle(one sprout will grow upward (the vine) and the other will grow downward (the root). Plant it in a bucket and keep inside until all frost is past.

They are very easy to grow.

Ok, great! That's exactly the info I was looking for. I guess I need to get my hands on a decent sized pot to get me through the winter until I can plant it outside.

Thanks, onefreeman!

I think they can be planted now, but then put them inside and take them out in the spring. Here in zone 9 we planted in the spring, and we will get a crop this year.

This was my reason to kick this thread back up. I was not sure if an additional plant was needed for successful pollination. Happy to report the sighting of a half dozen baby mirlitons, growing rapidly and healty looking. Many will certainly be ready for Thanksgiving. So here is our answer: one plant is enough.

Since we will get heaps of them soon, how about posting some recipes? I'll post one on a later post.

i grew a chayote vine rather accidentally a few years back and would like to start another one as soon as i get enough energy and imagination to create a structure for it to grow on.

i like to cube them and add them to fried breakfast potatoes with onions but just during the last few minutes of cooking so that they don't get soft. Top the whole thing with a fried egg, yum.

we also enjoyed them cubed, dusted with cumin and quickly stirfried with sweet and hot chile peppers and garlic. If you keep a high flame they become lightly browned but stay crispy.

Here is a proper recipe from cookbook author Su-Mei Yu:

Chayote Relish:

1 medium chayote, peeled and diced
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp sumac
1 T fresh lime juice
1 tsp olive oil
6 mint leaves, torn and bruised

Combine first 6 ingredients in a bowl. Mix well, Add the oil and mix to combine. Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with the mint leaves.

i'm thinking it might also make a nice pickle with lemongrass (rice) vinegar, salt and sugar.

i'd love to hear about other ways to prepare them.

Has anyone tried the shoots of the chayote vine? The tender shoots of this vegetable are supposedly yummy and very popular in Taiwan and southern China. People there plant chayote for the shoots specifically. A Chinese lady living in North Carolina planted a vine. In her blog, she claims the shoots are the best green she have ever had. I will try to grow some next year. You can find pictures showing the stir fried shoots by Googling "dragon whisker" or "dragon beard" which is a direct translation of the Chinese name for the shoots.

Actually, there is a good picture of the cooked shoots under Chayote in wikipedia.

When we make mirlitons we just make them, no recipe, so I had none written down. I found one from Chef John's that sounds pretty good and close to how we make them. I wrote some differences and variations below.
___________________________________________
CRABMEAT AND SHRIMP STUFFED MIRLITON

Ingredients:
6 mirlitons, sliced lengthwise
1 pound jumbo lump crabmeat
1 pound (7090 count) shrimp, peeled and deveined
¼ pound butter
1 cup diced onions
1 cup diced celery
½ cup diced red bell peppers
¼ cup minced garlic
1 tbsp chopped basil
salt and black pepper to taste
Louisiana hot sauce to taste
¼ cup chopped parsley
2 cups Italian bread crumbs
12 pats butter

Method:
Preheat oven to 375°F. Boil sliced mirlitons in lightly-salted water 30Â40 minutes or until meat is tender enough to scoop from shells. Once tender, remove from water and cool. Using a teaspoon, remove seeds and gently scoop all meat out of shell, being careful not to tear shell. Discard excess liquid accumulated while scooping meat. Reserve meat and save shells for stuffing. In a 12-inch cast iron skillet, melt butter over medium-high heat. Sauté onions, celery, bell peppers, garlic and basil 3Â5 minutes or until vegetables are wilted. Blend in shrimp and cook 2Â3 minutes or until pink and curled. Mix in reserved meat from mirlitons and chop large pieces while cooking. Cook 15Â20 minutes, stirring until flavors develop. After most of liquid has evaporated, remove from heat and season with salt, pepper, hot sauce and parsley. Fold in crabmeat, being careful to not break lumps. Sprinkle in approximately 1½ cups of bread crumbs to absorb any excess liquid and to hold stuffing intact. Divide mixture into 12 equal portions and stuff into hollowed-out shells. Place stuffed mirlitons on baking pan and sprinkle with remaining bread crumbs. Top each mirliton with 1 pat of butter. Bake 30 minutes or until golden brown. Serve 1 mirliton half as a vegetable or 2 halves as an entrée.
___________________________________________

Variations: we have not made this with basil, but it sounds good, and i like to use olive oil for at least part of the butter. I have added fresh oregano and marjoram tough. I use tony chacharaze creole seasoning instead of the hot sauce, but I use hot peppers for at least some of the 1/2 cup of peppers.

One way to make this vegetarian, just omit the seafood, substitute some mashed tofu, some tomatoes stewed in olive oil, you can add more peppers and also eggplants, anything your garden is producing at the moment. Sprinkle some grated parmesan on top....yum yum. Very good and does not require taking out a loan.

Holy moly. I've only ever had chayote in soup, but that stuffed recipe above sounds absolutely mouth watering!

Yes spaghetina, it is very good. As far as I can tell it is one of the traditional Creole holiday dishes, served for
Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any holiday around that time of the year, since it is when chayotes/mirlitons are in season.

I have never had them in soup. Do you make a soup primarily out of chayote or do you add chayote as part of a mixed vegetable soup?

I also like the relish recipe above. I was wondering Mauirose, are the chunks cooked or raw?

Several more chayote sightings. Some folks in the family will probably be getting a box of mirlitons for the holidays.....I am thinking about the ones that instigated my chayote planting in the first place.....not that I am complaining, is is an awesome plant!

ncv, yes, i've heard the shoots are edible. Haven't tried them myself. A name like Dragon's Beard somehow makes me hesitate ; )

i haven't had it in soup but i bet it would be great. Mixed veg as you suggested Cabrita or maybe in a tortilla soup to replace the zucchini? Seems like it could be cooked in the same way as green papaya but i haven't tried that so i didn't post about it earlier.

In the relish recipe the chayote/mirliton/pipinola is not cooked.

New Or leans becomes NawLens (hope that's close) so how do you say Mir li tons?

Mauirose, I think they say 'mer - lee - tohn', I learned french in Europe, so when I go to 'Nawlens', I just speak English!

Glad to hear the relish is made with raw chayotes. We just had some very strong winds from the north and this knocked a couple of mirlitons/chayotes to the ground. I did not want to harvest any more for stuffing, so I simply sliced them in spears and put them in a dilly vinegar pickle mix. I plan to add them to a salad in a couple of days.

One of them was a good size already, but I noticed how fine and tender the skin was, and how undifferentiated the pit is. since the pit is edible, i just sliced the whole thing, peel, pit and all, since it all was very tender. I heard of pickling them whole as babies, this sounds interesting (for when I get a bunch!).

Cabrita, usually the soup is sort of a brothy soup, like what you'd find in a Chinese restaurant with boiled pork, and some various spices masquerading as sticks and twigs, lol. The chayote is added sort of like winter melon would be, and then boiled with it until just tender. I love, love, love chayote in soup.

We already made a platter of stuffed mirlitons this past weekend (used 4, or 8 halves). I was surprised that they are so much more tender than the ones from the store, even though they are as large or even larger.

Very exciting that there are about 6 large ones to harvest already, and many many more coming up. Thanksgiving is two weeks from tomorrow, so by then we will have enough to make stuffed mirlitons for a large family gathering.

The bees are going crazy pollinating. Very nice to be able to provide the winter crew of bees with some sustenance, and they are doing a good job with the pollination. I cannot believe so much fruit and foliage out of just one plant. I suspect we have the right conditions to grow them, I wonder for how long they will fruit? Our summer squash are almost done, same with the winter squash (butternuts) but it seems that the harvest for these other curcubits is just starting.

I also wanted to mention that I scaled back the above recipe but used steamed tempeh (a fermented soy product), with a tsp of old bay seasoning in place of the seafood. This worked out very well to make them vegetarian, or suitable for people with seafood allergies (someone in the family is). Much cheaper too!

An update and one more question on chayotes....

We prepared a whole lot of stuffed ones for Thanksgiving, made more stuffed halves to keep in the freezer (just bake at 350F for 20 minutes and it makes a very easy entree or main dish), gave a bunch to family over the holidays, brought a bunch to work on a couple of occasions (liked by my Chicano and Vietnamese co-workers), my partner also brought some to work a couple of times. There are 7 of them in my crisper now and a few more on the vine. We got a slight freeze and the vine looks affected, but we are not expecting any freezes in the next week. Anyway, i love this since our peppers are dwindling, only some tomatoes producing, all the squash is done, but here we have a bunch of new fruit! (well a vegetable I guess). OK, we have peas and lettuce coming in, but we had chayotes WHILE waiting for the peas and lettuces.

As far as other things to do with them, I added some to a lemongrass soup and I created a 'cream of chayote soup". We really liked it and soup sounds so good now with the cold. I will post it here and then I'll ask my question....

Spicy chayote cream soup

3 medium chayotes, steamed and chopped
1 large baking type white potato (baked or steamed)
1 large orange sweet potato (baked or steamed)
1 large onion, chopped
handful chopped fresh dill (I have used basil also)
few smoked peppers, minced
1 can (~15oz) black eye peas, or equivalent frozen, or freshly cooked
1/2 to 1 cup ground almond (soak 1/2 cup almond slivers in water and grind with blender or food processor, drain, use liquid for milk, use solids here, or use the whole thing for this soup)
quart veggie broth
olive oil for saute
Salt to taste

Sautee onion in olive oil. Add dill and smoked peppers, stir a few minutes and add remaining ingredients. When it has boiled a couple of minutes, take immersion blender to the pot and puree. Season with salt to taste. This is even better the next day.
__________________________________________________

OK, now for my question. I understand that these are even more productive on their second year, and I also understand that the roots are edible. We are able to handle the production this year, but if it gets even more, it will be too much! So I was thinking, if I harvest some of the root, maybe this will control the plant and prevent it from getting much larger (and fruitful?). So any of you have done this? when would i harvest the root and how? How do I cook it? Do I wait until the vine appears to die down? I do have to take some action or it will invade the whole neighborhood.
_____________________________________________________

I have my Chayote / Mirliton sprout!!!!!!!!

Here are some pics.

Wish me luck!!

DL {{gwi:108933}}

{{gwi:108934}}

is that the same one that is in the pot as the pic' with the good shoot on it?

the main part of the shoot should be showing above the mix. looks like the white variety as well.

guess you going to carry the plant through winter in the pot, and plant out when it warms next season.

len

Didn't know there are different varieties, especially not heirlooms, interesting.

i wondered the same thing as Len.

Cabrita,since you got good results with this first year plant, would you consider uprooting the whole thing once it stops producing and then replanting the following year?

Oops, i just googled 'chayote tuber' and think i understand your question better. This is what i learned-

Chayote usually produce edible tubers in year two or three. The tubers can be prepared like potatoes-baked, boiled or fried, usually with skin on. A single vine can produce between 75 and 600 fruits per year. (Whoa Nellie that's a lot of chayote!) Production declines after the third year.

So interesting! Thanks for asking the question. Looking forward to reading about how it goes for you.

It looks like dancinglemons has the plant in the right orientation. Some people trim the shoots before planting. If you did not trim them, then yes, they should show, but probably will find their way out, right?

Mauirose, your last post answers the question on the other post. We want the root! Also, my partner is very happy with the existing vine, even though the fruit originated from the common grocery store ones, they are much better. Probably because of the freshness? or the soil here? Not sure. Also, we are both very curious about eating some of the root, and we need to wait until next year at a minimum (just googled it too...LOL). I will post what we find out if we decide to harvest next year.

For now, we had a freak frost and the vine seems to have bitten the dust. The production was manageable, but there are still many on the vine and some hiding. I am estimating 40, and my partner 30, so say 35 of them so far, but still some on the vine. Not sure if the plant top has died or will it come back? I am very happy with it so far, even if we only get what is now left on the vine.

Hello all,

I am currently growing chayote/mirliton. Please click on the link below for another thread in which I have photos of the experiment. Be sure to scroll down for the most recent photos.

Cheers,
DL

Since these things are said to grow from a tuberous root that can be overwintered, I brought mine indoors in its pot for the winter, I think (!!!???)

Well, I lost it -- literally. I can't find where in the house I stashed the pot, which is pretty large (about an 14" diameter tub).

I know I brought it in for the winter -- it's a fairly distinctive pot, and it's nowhere to be found outside.

And, I swear I remember hauling it indoors on a cold, blustery Sunday in mid-October with a hand truck.

I was sneaking things in the house that day -- I had emergency abdominal surgery the week before for a hernia, and wasn't allowed to lift anything over 8 lbs. But, you know how guys are .... so, whenever I had the opportunity and the family wasn't looking, so they didn't yell at me, I brought stuff in by dragging, pushing, shoving, etc.

But, it's been a real mystery and puzzle to me what happened to my big pot with the Chayote root in it.

Oh well, I picked up 3 more sprouty looking fruits at the grocery store the other day!

I'm in Idaho and decided to try growing Chayote/Mirliton this year. Our summers are rather hot in the summer...I'm talking 110*F in the shade sometimes, but our winters and springs can be surprisingly cold.

It took me forever to get some Chayote squash. Local stores had none even though we have a good sized ethnic group living here... yet none of the stores had these. I finally found some sprouted fruit on Ebay of all places. I bought 2 and the seller sent me 3. I'm having to make do with the containers I have so I used a used pot for the largest chayote. Because I was setting this in my window sill I didn't want it to drain water all over the place so I stuck the pot in a plastic folgiers container... and used a plastic bag from a thing of dog treats as a make shift green house. The other two chayote I just stuck in paper beverage cups. Well hmmm the chayote in the big pot nested in the plastic folgers container is doing really well! btw.. I put the fat sprouted end up and the pointy end down. The other two... not so much. I got online to see why this might be. I read where Chayote should be placed in the ground AFTER the soil reaches 65*F. I suspect that the reason the one did so well is because I basically made a greenhouse for the roots by sticking the pot in the folgers container. Today upon inspection I see that one of the 2 in the beverage cups is not doing anything... the other is trying to bud. I recently planted an azalea so I used it's pot and some more soil... and another Folgers container... If my thinking is correct this baby should be going bonkers soon.

I plan to plant mine on the south facing side of my house and garage in big containers and allow them to grow up and over to help shade the place. If I get fruits it would be a bonus. I'll try to report back with results.