https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=454708946028048 CHOKO ... Chayote (Sechium edule), also known as mirliton, güisquil, pimpinela and choko, is an edible plant belonging to the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae. This fruit was first cultivated in the Mesoamericas between southern Mexico and Honduras. In Australia 'chokos' have the potential to be a staple veg once past prejudices are overcome . ... GO TO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chayote Ways to Use the Humble Choko Vine
It's spring time in Australia, and in Far North Queensland they received a decent fall of rain. There they are apparently gleefully anticipating the springing to life of our un-irrigated areas that had gone dull and dormant during the dry season. Among other things, I’m looking forward again to abundant chokos – that much disparaged veg of my youth
Back then when I was living in the 'meat and 3veg era 'chokos' were a bland, boring vegetable that most didn’t like skinning, didn’t like eating it with the skin on, didn’t like eating undercooked, didn’t like them being tough and didn’t like them overcooked, watery and unappetizing mush. Then again a lot of food then was BLOODYboring!
Add to that the bags chokos that throughout the summer people would give you chokos and they were just… blah, blah, blah. Or so I thought until I discovered different. However, my Gran made 'apple pie' with chokos, dried apple, cloves and spices and that was quite good.
Then I found out, like a lot of thing, that we just don’t know how to make effective use of this generous, abundant, easy to grow plant – and I started paying more attention. But sadly I also thought that you couldn't grow them in TASMANIA. AGAIN, I was wrong!
Here are some ways to make use of choko vines and fruits now that I have have found out that one can grow them in TASMANIA.
One can put all the tiny tender little bits into salads. The smallest little nut sized chokos are great in salads, along with the tender tips of the vines, the tiny, shiny, newest leaves, and the curling tendrils.
One can cook the small to medium sized chokos. If you pick them before they are tough and big, there is no need to peel or to remove the seed. This was a revelation for me before I found out that they can grow in nTASMANIA and that they can figure large in Asian cooking. The seed of these smaller chokos tastes pleasant and probably adds some nutrition, and the skin is not at all tough. Steamed small choko is one of my favorite vegetable.
One can feed the vines to to chooks, guinea pigs, who convert it into fruit tree food. Chooks love the leaves and vines, young or old. They probably would eat the chokos, too, but hey there are other things to do with them. Anyway chokos come out the back end of chooks as manure, which is a much more nutrient dense product for the soil around plants and trees.
One can feed the large, tough fruit and the excess vines to animals. They will eat all parts of the choko plant, at any stage. It’s not their favorite food but they will happily munch on choko fruits and vines if there is nothing else on offer, and it makes a great addition to their diet for the days one can’t find much other plant food for them.
Goats and cattle will eat the large, old chokos, roughly chopped. They’d eat the young tender ones, and probably the vines too, if they were invited.
Excess vines, and spent vines at the end of winter, make great mulch and are easy to pull down from where-ever they’ve climbed to. In the growing season, in the absence of something to climb up, choko vines will ramble across the ground, forming a living mulch that’s easy to pull away when you no longer want it there.
Volumes of easily produced plant material that can be used for mulch or in compost is something if one placed a high value on them in that regard. Plants that will do this with no effort on anyone's part and are thus welcome helpers in the garden.
One can trial growing chokos on fences where one has weeds and grasses growing up through the fence that are difficult to clear out. In the hope that when the vines get thick enough, they might shade out the weeds. The jury is still out on this one.
Bonus extra:
One reads that choko plants form a storage tuber underground that you can eat. But they'll shoot from this tuber yfor years why do it and kill one's vines???
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