Growing Choko/Chayote, also Chayote squash, christophene, chouchou, mirliton

Sechium edule : Cucurbitaceae / the gourd family

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

Not recommended for growing in USA - Zone 5a regions

Easy to grow. Plant whole mature fruit when one produces a shoot at one end.. Best planted at soil temperatures between 59°F and 86°F. (Show °C/cm)
Space plants: 39 inches apart
Harvest in 17-25 weeks. Best when fruit is light green and not more than 6 cm long.
Compatible with (can grow beside): Cucumbers

Your comments and tips

14 Jun 18, Mike L (Australia - temperate climate): Nature is a strange thing. You will just have to see what happens. Last year here winter didn't really come until August - this year early June.
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14 Jul 18, Phil (Australia - temperate climate): Surprisingly the plants are still strong over most of them, with the larger chokos continuing to grow, although certainly slower than six or eight weeks ago and many with imperfections over their outer layer. Once they get to the size of an egg they do grow much faster although many of the tiny ones that did get a start have got to around two cm long and dropped. So far we've only had two nights that hit dead on 0'C so if frosty nights can be avoided it looks like they will keep going. The first night that does have a bad frost and I'll be stripping the two plants of all chokos whatever the size.
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28 May 18, Chris braid (Australia - temperate climate): Where do I buy a choko plant in Melbourne?
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30 May 18, Mike L (Australia - temperate climate): Normally you buy a choko and leave it in your pantry or window sill - when it starts to sprout/shoot and grow a vine then you plant it. In Melbourne that is December.
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30 May 18, ME- Rachel McCracken (Australia - temperate climate): You can just buy a choko, sit it in the laundry (or somewhere, on top of a cupboard worked for me) till it sprouts, then plant. You’re going to really struggle though, buddy. The best luck I had was when I bought a choko at a Farmer’s market in SEYMOUR from a grower around Ardmona. They were better acclimatised. It takes two years to start cropping. Best of luck!
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25 May 18, Lina (New Zealand - cool/mountain climate): Our choko plant had thousands of little chooks but they all fell off, in all we picked 15 Can you please tell me why. Please lina
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28 Jun 18, Peter (Australia - temperate climate): Could be a variation in the availability of soil water. Plants are better producers the more years they are in the one spot. Ours (in Sydney) was in the ground forever, trunk thicker than a forearm, and covered chook shed. Never watered so must have put down some really deep roots. So much fruit we'd play cricket with them. Not very good for soccer though ;)
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29 May 18, Mike (Australia - sub-tropical climate): Probably not many bees to pollinate the female flowers.
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12 Apr 18, Jonathan Manglinong (Australia - temperate climate): Im planning to plant chokos this month of april which is Autumn period. Do you think Sydney Area is ok to plant at now? Where the temparature is in between 15-30 degrees.
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13 Apr 18, Mike (Australia - sub-tropical climate): If you looked up choko in the temperate zone on this website - is says plant DEC. The purpose of this website is that you work out your climate zone and then look in the vegetables and herbs section and read up about growing a crop.
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my wife brought home a couple of Chayote that had started sprouting tiny roots out the bottom, so I researched and found that you can carefully split the fruit in half and retrieve the seed, you do not need to plant the entire fruit, but you must be very careful splitting the chayote because the seed is soft, not hard like an avocado or mango, and easily damaged when splitting the fruit. Then I planted them in small starter containers in the kitchen window, and after a few weeks when the shoots had gotten about 2 inches tall, I transplanted them outside into a 5-gallon bucket with a heavy-duty tomato cage as a trellis. A few weeks later one had been eaten by pests and died, but the other is growing and about 6 inches tall. I know this is the wrong timing for growing chayote, but since the seeds had already sprouted roots, I wanted to see what I could do with them. If the one remaining vine survives the winter here in Zone 10A, like my tomatoes and eggplants usually do, maybe it will flower and fruit next year. If a seed package or even a very reputable web site like Gardenate posts a recommended panting time, and your circumstances don't match that recommended timing, try it anyway, you never know what the results might be unless you try. I'll plant potatoes year-round whenever I have any potatoes sprouting slips. I may only get a few baby potatoes when panted "out of season", but it was either try to grow the sprouts or add them to the compost bin. I also grow garlic in Zone 10A even though it is recommended not to. They are smaller than if grown in better climates, but small garlic is better than no garlic, it still tastes great, just use two cloves instead of one.

- dz

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Growing Choko/Chayote, also Chayote squash, christophene, chouchou, mirliton

Sechium edule : Cucurbitaceae / the gourd family

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