Jan–MarApr–JunJul–SepOct–Dec
Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
← Explore Plants
Plant · P-346
Achocha
Cyclanthera pedata
Achocha is a fast climbing vine that gives three edible parts off one plant - young fruit eaten raw or cooked with a cucumber flavor, mature fruit stuffed like a pepper, and young shoots and leaves cooked as greens. It grows only as a warm-season annual, killed by the first hard freeze, but needs just about four months of warm weather to set its first fruit, so a normal summer is plenty. The seed and fruit also carry a real medicinal reputation - brewed as a tea, powdered against intestinal parasites, or taken as juice - with one trial recording an 18.3 percent drop in blood cholesterol over a year.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 9–11
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moderate
Vertical layer
Vine- Soil pH
- 6–8
- Plant type
- Vine
- Mature height
- 6–15 ft
- Mature spread
- 4.9 ft
- Plant spacing
- 36 in
- Root type
- Not yet recorded
- Spread pattern
- Seed
Keep exploring
Similar plants
Discover more plants with shared forest layers or growing conditions.
African Walnut
Plukenetia conophora
African Walnut is a fast-growing evergreen vine of humid tropical rainforest, grown for an oil-rich seed usually boiled or roasted and served…
Vine · USDA 10–12
Air Potato
Dioscorea bulbifera
Air Potato is a true perennial vine that produces edible bulbils in its leaf axils along with an underground tuber - unlike frost-killed…
Vine · USDA 7–11
Banana Passionfruit
Passiflora tarminiana
Banana Passionfruit is a fast-climbing vine that produces a deep yellow to orange fruit with sweet aromatic pulp, eaten raw or turned into…
Vine · USDA 10–12
Betel
Piper betle
Betel is a fast-growing woody climbing vine grown for its leaves which are chewed with areca palm seed and lime as a mild stimulant after…
Vine · USDA 10–12
Bitter Melon
Momordica charantia
Bitter melon is a fast-growing tropical vine grown for its young green fruit, cooked the way cucumber is used across the tropics. Left to…
Vine · USDA 9–11
Bottle Gourd
Lagenaria siceraria
Bottle gourd's real value here is not food but craft: the mature shell dries hard enough to become a bottle, bowl, dipper or birdhouse…
Vine · USDA 2–11
The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
- Locked research reference
- Locked research reference
- Locked research reference