Vegetable · Cucurbitaceae
When to plant chayotes
Planted as a whole sprouting fruit rather than as seed, and capable of covering a shed in a single season. One plant is genuinely enough.
Plant out
2 weeks after
Counted from your last spring frost.
Days to maturity
120-150
From planting out to a first picking.
Frost tolerance
Tender
How much cold the plant itself will take.
Those weeks become real dates once you name a place.
Timing, in frost-relative terms
Seed packets rarely give calendar dates, because a date that suits one latitude is wrong at another. They give offsets from the last spring frost instead, and those offsets are what make chayotes plantable anywhere.
- Plant out 2 weeks after the last frost.
- Expect 120–150 days to maturity, counted from planting out.
Getting the timing right
Plant the whole fruit on its side, sprout end up, two weeks after the last frost. Fruit sets only as days shorten in autumn, so the season has to be long at the far end rather than the near one.
Frost tolerance
Top growth is killed at 0C. Where winters stay above about -3C the root survives and resprouts, making it effectively perennial in mild climates.
Classified as tender, with damage expected below 0°C (32°F)32°F (0°C).