chayote chaos, part 4

In our last episode, I described my discovery that growing chayotes along an old and termite-damaged north-facing fence could destroy that fence and, possibly, a neighborly relationship going back almost forty years. In Mending Wall, poet Robert Frost has some ironic fun with the conventional wisdom that "Good fences make good neighbors," but I will stand by it (yes, pun fanciers, the wisdom and the fence).

A 1980 article in Mother Earth News showed me the error of my ways, and I am eternally grateful that MEN chose to put their back issues on line. But just think how much trouble and grief I'd have saved if I'd found the article last fall! Author Elizabeth S. O’Neill, a home gardener in California's central valley, has wonderful advice about sprouting chayotes:  

. . . locate a market . . . where chayote is sold in late fall. (It doesn’t matter if the fruit has been in cold storage and plastic-wrapped.) 

Buy several ... put them away in a dark, cool (not frosty) place . . . and wait. The seed sprout will emerge and lengthen in the darkness. By February it should be approximately six inches long.

 Then, if your area — like most parts of North America — isn’t yet frost-free, put the sprouted chayote in a pot . . . (Should you live in a zone, like ours, that usually stays above freezing in February, you can simply plant the germinated fruit wherever you want it to grow.)

So now it's apparent to me where I went wrong. I started in early (not late) fall, bought a net of three (not 'several') chayotes, and could not wait until February for the sprouts. Potting was totally unnecessary in our beneficent climate zone.

Oddly, O'Neill does not mention waiting for roots to appear before planting chayotes, but I learned about roots when I took my next step: transplanting the chayotes to a narrow strip of ground along a newer, sturdier redwood fence along the north side of our property. Steve had collaborated with our north-side neighbor in building this fence: digging post-holes to sink the four-by-four supports in concrete, attaching horizontal two-by-fours near the top and bottom of the four-by-fours, facing each section with one-by-sixes, and painting the whole with a wood preservative. No termites here, though they dominate an old wooden shed on the neighbor's side. Good fence, good neighbor. Good place to grow a bumper crop of heavy veggies.

BTW, O'Neill's article lists chayote's many names: 

They are known as christophine or mirliton to Caribbeans, chocho to Madeirans, pipinella to Italians, and pipinola to Hawaiians. (The plant’s scientific name is Sechium edule, but most North Americans call them 'vegetable pears.') 

Pipinella is my aesthetic favorite, but who wants to write or read about pipinella chaos? Pipinella pitfalls, perhaps, but I'm not going to change titles in midstream. Pipinella sounds more like the name of a female character in a Mozart opera anyway.

I hope you sense that a happy ending will follow closely upon my description of transplanting the chayotes to a spot where they can thrive. Part 5 of this lengthy narrative will, I hope, bring closure and satisfaction.