After a bit of research, we found out that these vegetables were called chayote. Chayote are described as being a cross between a cucumber and a potato. They are cooked into soups and stews or served as a side-dish by themselves. I keep reading that they have a subtle, sweet flavor, like cucumber, but, to be completely honest, they didn't taste like anything to me. I guess I would say potato is probably closest, but they are not as firm or as starchy as a potato. I would say they taste like whatever you cook them with, which is a good quality in a vegetable.
We noticed chayote growing in farms along the sides of the roads. Chayote grows on a trellis, and the fruits hang down from trellis. All the farms we passed had the chayote fields in full sun.
Chayote field in full sun.
Because we grow coffee in filtered sunlight (a.k.a. shade), and because we didn't want to take down any of our old-growth trees, and because it's actually against the law to cut down any tree bigger than a certain size, even if you are only planning to use it for a structure on your own farm, and because our agronomist told us to plant our chayote field where he did, we had a pretty lousy chayote crop this year.
Old-growth trees that give our coffee a shade canopy.
Putting in the trellis for the chayote
Chayote hanging from the trellis.
You have probably figured out already what the problem was that we had. We planted the chayote in filtered sunlight, and, as a result, the crop was pretty bad. We are currently in the process of moving the trellises to a sunnier spot. Yes, we noticed that all the other chayote fields were in full sun before we planted ours, but we were deferring to the experts. This time next year, we'll all be eating fried chayote!
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