When is a veggie not a veggie?

When it's a pear!

A favorite food of the ancient Aztecs, the delicious and versatile chayote should definitely be on the list of “Things To Try” for any gardener with a yen for the different. They’re easy to raise (although they’ll probably grow as an annual in our area), have a high yield of nutritious fruit.

Is it a fruit or a vegetable? Good question. People call them chayote “squash”. People call them “vegetable pears”. In Louisiana, they call them “mirliton” and in the Caribbeans, they call them “christophine”. Madeirans, Italians and Polynesians all have them and all have a particular name for them. They do grow on vines and are rather “squash-like”.

It’s actually a member of the cucurbit, or cucumber, family.

When they’re wee, one to two inches, you can make pickles or relish out of them. About two-thirds grown and they’re great served as a cucumber, sliced in a salad. When they’re almost grown, you can curry them, use them in a stir fry, put them in soups and stews or simply slice them, boil them for about ten minutes, season them with salt and pepper and butter and eat up! When fully mature, the chayote can double as a potato. Mash them with garlic and a little grated cheese. Cut them in half and bake them as you would winter squash. They’re endlessly versatile.

Plant the chayote in the spring after the danger of frost. Here’s the trick: You have to buy them at the grocery store. Work the soil well and add plenty of compost. Plant the whole fruit, one to a hill, on it’s side with the broad end sloping slightly downward and the stem end slightly exposed. Chayote has shallow roots, so cultivation should be minimal. Mulch with compost, straw or leaves to keep weeds down and to conserve moisture. Sometimes you can get chayote to sprout indoors and then transplant when things warm up. Plant the germinated fruit wherever you want it to grow and LOOK OUT!

They are a rapidly growing vine that will crawl up and over everything near it. Keep it on a trellis and pay attention that it doesn’t crawl up into the trees or over a building. Remember that fence I was talking about a few weeks ago? Perfect place! The vine will grow all summer long and may grow as much as 30 feet or more before it blooms. You’ll need to water your chayote deeply once a week and you’ll need to keep it mulched. In August or September, when the days start to shorten, green blossoms will appear, but you may not notice them. Then one day in late September or October, your vine will suddenly be loaded with the green fruit and you’ll be harvesting well into frost. They’ll sort of hang out in cold storage for a while, and they’ll keep well spread out on newspapers in the garage. You should be able to enjoy chayote clear into the New Year.

When you’re done harvesting, pull down the vines and mulch the roots. In our area, where the winters seem to be getting colder, mulching heavily is recommended. Next season, new shoots should pop up through that insulated mulch layer and you’re off to the races.

Two chayote vines should produce all the chayote you can eat and then some, including plenty to give to friends and neighbors and donate to a local food pantry or church program for the hungry in our community. These two vines can produce loads of fruit for many years.

Once again, I’ll venture the question: When is a veggie not a veggie?

When it’s pasta!

The spaghetti squash is an interesting vegetable because when it’s cooked it separates into pieces that resemble spaghetti pasta. You can use it in place of pasta or as a very unique addition to salads.

Spaghetti squash is a winter squash. It is easy to grow, is sown from seed in May or so and germinates a couple of weeks after sowing. It is also a fairly hearth veggie that can be stored for several months provided that it is stored in a cool, dry place. No lower than 45 or so and no higher than 60.

As I said, plant your seeds in May when the soil warms up, in a sunny location with well-drained soil. When planting add a shovelfull of compost or manure or ½ cup of complete organic fertilizer. Plant several seeds together in a group 1 to 1-1/2 inches deep. Squash plants should roughly one inch of water per week. If it’s really hot, water twice a week. Make sure to rotate squash to different areas of your garden. Grow these vertically on trellises and try to keep them away from zucchini as cross pollination could make for a weird cross breed. You’ll need some old panty hose to make slings to support the fruits if you’re going to grow on a trellis. Otherwise, be prepared with some old wood shingles to place underneath, as that will keep some kinds of crawlies off.

Squash have pests, no doubt about it. Watch out for cucumber beetles, squash bugs (second only to potato bugs on the Disgust-O-Meter) and vine borers. If you get an infestation of beetles, cover your plants with a lightweight fabric like gauze or muslin. Remove it once the plants are ready for pollination. Put out those yellow sticky traps from the nursery or hardware store. Squash bugs (Ew!) can be dealt with via companion planting. Radishes, nasturtiums or marigolds are all natural repellants for the squash bug. My personal favorite is the tahini fly that EATS the squash bugs and their eggs. Vine borers are a caterpillar that destroys the stems of your squash plants. They can be controlled with either a hot pepper/garlic spray or their natural predators, the trichogramma wasp.

Harvest your spaghetti squash once it has reached a butter yellow or deep orange coloring. A sure sign of maturity is the squash’s skin hardening. If you have any intention at all of storing your squash, be sure to leave about two inches of stem on each fruit.

Tossing spaghetti squash with a sauce is the last step! First, you must cook it! Poke it with a fork several times and bake it in a 375 oven for about an hour. You can boil it whole for a half hour. And – finally – place your squash in the crockpot with two cups of water, after you’ve poked it all over with a fork, and cook it on low for 8 hours. Cut it open, remove the seeds and pull out the pasta-like threads with a fork. It’s great with just about any kind of pasta sauce.

Spaghetti squash is another great addition to one’s garden. It is prolific, really nutritious, versatile and just fun.