I am going to grow chayotes in 2010. If you have grown it please post instructions AND your results. I am in Virginia and have April until end October with no frost. I understand it is a member of the cucumber family. Is it susceptible to the SVB? Cucumber beetles?? Disease??

Thanks,
DL

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.

DL

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thanks, onefreeman!

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 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.

Ingredients:
6 mirlitons, sliced lengthwise
1 pound jumbo lump crabmeat
1 pound (70–90 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 30–40 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 3–5 minutes or until vegetables are wilted. Blend in shrimp and cook 2–3 minutes or until pink and curled. Mix in reserved meat from mirlitons and chop large pieces while cooking. Cook 15–20 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.
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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.

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!

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?

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!).

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!