• Home
  • About Off The Grid
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
Monday, May 19, 2025
  • How-To
  • Grid Threats
  • Survival
  • Gardening
  • Food
  • Worldview
  • Health
  • Privacy
  • Hunting
  • Defense
  • Financial
  • News
  • Misc
No Result
View All Result
  • How-To
  • Grid Threats
  • Survival
  • Gardening
  • Food
  • Worldview
  • Health
  • Privacy
  • Hunting
  • Defense
  • Financial
  • News
  • Misc
No Result
View All Result
Off The Grid News
Home Survival Gardening

3 Exotic Vegetables For Your Off-Grid Greenhouse

by Esther
in Survival Gardening
Print Print
3 Exotic Vegetables For Your Off-Grid Greenhouse
Share on FacebookShare on XShare on TruthEmail Article

jicama and limes

Are you lucky enough to live in a temperate climate where it rarely freezes? If so, or if you’ve got a greenhouse, you can grow some vegetables uncommon to much of the country. These vegetables provide new textures and flavors, adding variety to your diet. These include chayote, naranjilla, and jicama.

Chayote

Also known as vegetable pears, chayotes are grown in Latin America. They are a light green fruit shaped like a pear. When sautéed like summer squash, they taste similar, except they’re a little sweeter.

To grow chayote, you first have to find the seed. One way to do this is to buy a few mature chayotes in Latino or Asian stores in the fall. Wrap them and store in a cool place. By February, the seed inside the fruit should have sprouted to a few inches long. Plant at least two of them five feet apart, with just the tip of the new growth reaching out of the soil. If you’re in a cooler climate, start them in a pot in a greenhouse.  Chayote vines grow rampantly and require a lot of space or trellising. After six to nine months of frost-free weather, the pear-shaped fruits are ready for harvesting.

I find the raw fruits rather unpalatable, but others eat them raw like cucumbers. However, I recommend lightly sautéing them alone or with summer squash.

Chayote is a great choice for sustainable gardening because many different parts of the plant can be eaten. Green shoots can be prepared like asparagus or used in stir-fries. You can harvest the roots and use them like potatoes or fry them like yams.

Chayote is a prolific producer with many edible parts, so consider making them part of your garden.

New Natural Fertilizer Doubles Garden Production!

Naranjilla

Naranjilla, also known as the apricot tomato, is a cousin of tomatoes. Originating in South America, it is now grown throughout much of Latin America, as well as in temperate regions of the United States. Naranjilla fruit are orange (naranjilla means “little orange” in Spanish) and the size of a small tomato. They are covered with short brittle hairs that repel insects and are easily removed by rubbing.

Naranjilla are finicky plants. They don’t tolerate frost and don’t like really hot temperatures. Therefore, unless you live in Florida or Hawaii, your best bet is to start them early in a pot in your home or a greenhouse. Once the weather is warm enough, set out the seedlings six to eight feet apart, preferably in well-composted soil in an area with some shade. With generous watering, the plants will grow into a spreading shrub up to eight feet tall. A healthy plant yields up to 150 fruit per year.

Once ripe, the fruits are about two inches in diameter, with a greenish pulp. Their taste has been described as a mix between tomatoes, apricots, and pineapple. Although occasionally eaten raw, traditionally the fruits have been used to make a refreshing summer drink or fermented into wine.

Very few fruits (like strawberries) grow in one year. Try naranjilla for a fresh fruit taste that yields in its first year.

Jicama

If you’re like me, you make the garden work for you the entire growing season. Here in California’s central valley, it’s too hot to grow potatoes in the summer, so I’ve found a ready substitute in the jicama. Although you can occasionally find these turnip-shaped root vegetables in grocery stores, they are usually imported because few Americans grow them in their gardens.

Depending on how much organic amendment is present in the soil, jicama requires up to five-to-nine months of hot weather, so they may need to be started indoors in most temperate climates. A couple of months after your last frost date has passed, plant your pre-soaked seeds or seedlings in amended soil about a foot apart in three-foot rows. Provide some trellising for these plants so you can train their vines as they grow. Like potatoes, any part of the jicama root above ground is poisonous, so cover any exposed parts with soil. Once the plant has died back, harvest the roots and store them in a cool dark location.

Raw jicama has a taste somewhere between an apple and a potato. They go great on a salad with other summer vegetables. However, I prefer to cook them as a mashed potato substitute. I boil them for about ten minutes, mash them with butter and milk, and enjoy.

Conclusion

One of the great aspects of gardening is that you can do it almost anywhere in the United States. From the blistering cold of the north to the searing heat of the southwest to the hot humidity of the southeast, you can have a successful garden. We’ve previously pointed out some great rare vegetables for cooler climates. But if you live in temperate climates, give your taste buds a treat by enjoying a cool naranjilla drink while feasting on sautéed chayote with mashed jicama.

ShareTweetShareSend

Related Posts

How a Popular Pesticide Threatens Bees, Butterflies, and Human Health

How a Popular Pesticide Threatens Bees, Butterflies, and Human Health

by Bill Heid

The Hidden Fallout of Neonicotinoids Neonicotinoids, often called “neonics,” have become one of the most widely used classes of insecticides...

How Molasses Supercharges Plant and Microbial Growth

How Molasses Supercharges Plant and Microbial Growth

by Bill Heid

The Secret of a Sweet Soil In the world of regenerative gardening, few natural substances offer as many hidden benefits...

Brussels Sprouts: Nature’s Tiny Cancer Fighters

Brussels Sprouts: Nature’s Tiny Cancer Fighters

by Bill Heid

Brussels sprouts may bring to mind holiday dinners or childhood protest at the dinner table, but they deserve far more...

Next Post
The Problem with Relationships: The Ghost in the Machine

The Problem with Relationships: The Ghost in the Machine

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

Is the Stock Market Lying To Us? – Episode 035

Is the Stock Market Lying To Us? – Episode 035

How to Build a Solid Survival Plan

How to Build a Solid Survival Plan

Will your bug-out bag be useless in a crisis?

Defending Your Home From A Crazed Lunatic

TRENDING STORIES

  • bubonic plague

    Is Another Bubonic Plague Pandemic On The Horizon?

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Waco Fertilizer Plant Explosion & A Look Back On The “Waco Massacre”

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Make Yourself 3 Times More Likely To Survive A Heart Attack

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • AI Surveillance Of Shoppers: Walmart’s Newest Tool To Grab Your Data

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • ‘Apocalyptic’ Microchip Implants Are Here – And Being Inserted Into People’s Hands

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Subscribe to our Insider Newsletter

Huge discounts on off-the-grid gear and life saving supplements.






‘Off The Grid News’ is an independent, weekly email newsletter and website that is crammed full of practical information on living and surviving off the grid. Advice you’ll never hear from the mainstream media.

  • How-To
  • Grid Threats
  • Extreme Survival
  • Survival Gardening
  • Off-Grid Foods
  • Worldview
  • Natural Health
  • Survival Hunting
  • Privacy
  • Financial
  • Current Events
  • Self Defense
  • Home Defense
  • Pain-Free Living
  • Miscellaneous
  • Off Grid Videos

© Copyright 2025 Off The Grid News.  All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • How-To
  • Grid Threats
  • Survival
  • Gardening
  • Food
  • Worldview
  • Health
  • Privacy
  • Hunting
  • Defense
  • Financial
  • News
  • Misc
  • Videos

© Copyright 2025 Off The Grid News.  All Rights Reserved.