Having discovered that the mystery vine-growing squash type thing that the people at the bottom of the road were growing is called Chayote, and having found a couple in the road after a storm which we cooked and enjoyed, I decided I wanted to have a go at growing them!
Reading about them they are put in the soil as fruit and they grow from there.
So I waited and waited for another storm hoping to find more in the road which I could plant- but didn’t! The nearest I got was one that fell off the vine and I could see on their driveway, but it would have entailed me actually going onto their land which I was uncomfortable with. While one neighbour certainly has no problem blatantly scrumping – I’m not certain it’s universally accepted!
But it transpires that chayotes are relatively common and I was able to get a couple of sprouting chayote to try growing. And growing they certainly are!
The English name is air potato – and I also got a seedling of tomatillo – which is a tree tomato. Both of these are south American – so something there about things growing in the air! The people who grow the chayote also grow tomatillo and I do find these on the road from time to time. They do taste tomato-y and both the chayote and tomatillo fruit in the winter, so that will be good. Finger’s crossed 🙂