Achocha is a delicious and unknown member of the cucumber family with almost complete immunity from the diseases and pests which attack other cucurbits.
A growing bed can be made from many materials, but when you factor in the ability to make a growing bed from recycled components, then the opportunities become almost limitless.
Achocha or Caihua (pronounced kai-wa) is an unusual and relatively unknown member of the cucurbit or cucumber family with a difference. Although they share family roots with cucumbers, squash, pumpkin, zucchini and melons, they arealmost completely immune to many of the diseases and pests that attack the other cucurbits – squash bugs, vine borers, cucumber worms and powdery mildew along with other fungal issues.
Achochaare hugely prolific both in leafy shade growth and fruit, making them a dual purpose plant for gardeners looking for a green shade or windbreak which gives a good supply of tasty food.
Originally domesticated in the Andes Mountains, the seeds travelled by trade from modern day Columbia in the north to Bolivia in the south. This ancient crop has been featured on pre-historic pottery and art and is discussedin the book “Lost Crops of the Incas” by the National Research Council. Today, they are widely grown all across Central and South America, as well as in many other parts of the world. For example, achocha is very popular in northern India, Nepal and Bhutan.
The seeds are very intriguing, looking much like flecks of bark or burnt chunks of a rough plant material. The color ranges from a medium brown to an almost black. Each mature fruit will have several seeds in it.
A close-up of the seeds shows how very different they appear from almost all other vegetables, and certainly other cucurbit family seeds.
Another look at the achocha seed. The majority of them have the little tail or protrusion seen here.
Achocha puts on vigorous vine growth with lots of leaves which provide a good shade for other crops. In areas with a long hot season, establishing them early will give better growth as they slow down during the hottest times. Giving them a bit of afternoon shade and protection helps them along, as they are seen growing up through a patch of Butter Daisies and climbing up a trellis.
This is a western facing wall, and they had a bit of a challenge in becoming well established with the afternoon heat. They had morning shade, but were exposed to full sun and heat during the hottest part of the day until almost sundown.
On the opposite side of the wide walkway, they are seen much more established and prolific. This is the east facing wall that is shaded from early afternoon, giving the plants enough protection from high heat and constant sun exposure to really take off.
This was the most productive planting, giving handfuls of fruit each harvest.
Cindy is holding a young fruit with the blossom cap still attached. At this stage the bark-like seeds are still fairly soft and immature. The fruit will not have completely hollowed out yet, but it is very edible and mild in flavor with a soft texture.
Once the plants begin setting fruit, they should be harvested regularly to encourage continued production. As they begin to produce, you will have handfuls of the fruit to work with!
The tiny, off-white flowers can be seen in the background. It is best to plant at least two plants so they can pollinate each other. The flowers will attract a number of smaller insects to help with pollination, among them the beneficial serphid fly which feasts on aphids, thrips and other soft bodied destructive insect pests.
Another view of the size, shape and color of the achocha fruits, along with the foliage. There are a few different varieties of achocha – some with soft spines and a fatter fruit. Ours are more slender and smooth skinned with no soft spines.
The foliage will sometime raise eyebrows and cause questions, as its long toothy leaves somewhat resemble another controversial plant. There is no relation, but it is a conversation starter!
One handful of fruit leads to discovering another, then another as well…
You’ll see why they have earned the name of “stuffing cucumber” when you slice them open and scoop out the seeds. There are enough recipes using them to fill a thick cookbook, but an easy and delicious starting point is to simply stuff them with sautéed sweet peppers and onions after slicing them open and just warming them up on the griddle.
Very colorful, unique and eye-catching along with being delicious, they will be the center point of the table.
In Central and South America the fruits are eaten either raw or cooked after removal of the seeds. They are also prepared as stuffed peppers; stuffed with meat, fish or cheese and then baked or fresh.
Kids often love to pick and eat them in the garden, and they make an excellent addition to salads. The tender shoots, tendrils and young vines are edible and eaten raw or very lightly cooked.
A growing bed can be made from many materials, but when you factor in the ability to make a growing bed from recycled components, then the opportunities become almost limitless. It makes sense in so many ways to make your raised beds from an already-used materials. You will often save a significant amount of money while contributing less to the growing landfills. In addition, you reduce the amount of raw resources used to make new building materials. Often you will find your options are much broader when looking at recycled stock, as the solution can more easily present itself when your mind is more open and relaxed, without a fixed design idea.
This is exactly what led to our finding and choosing this particular metal from our local salvage yard. We know we needed a structurally sound, ecologically friendly and long lasting substance for our raised beds in our garden. The pricing on new lumber which could be in contact with soil for long periods of time was not realistic for the amount of beds we needed to make. One by one, every other reasonably available construction material and method fell out as being much too costly, much too labor intensive or not suitable for our climate.
All of this led us to our local salvage yard. When we let the person know what we were looking to do, he immediately pointed us in the direction of some large-scale roofing they had recently recovered. After looking at a couple of different options, we came across these 3 foot wide and 20 foot long sections of really heavy galvanized steel with most of their avocado green paint still attached. They were heavy enough that it was hard to turn one section over to look at the other side.
When we turned a smaller section over and saw how well it dove-tailed into the long section, we knew we had a custom-made solution to our raised beds. All at a price that was pennies on the dollar of other solutions we had looked at, with a much longer lifespan as a bonus.
We have now used these as raised beds in our garden for almost a decade, with no problems. We recently moved the two smaller beds in our greenhouse and discovered photos of when we made the beds initially and wanted to share the process with you.
Please use this as a guiding hand, suggesting what can be done; don’t go out and expect to find this exact material waiting for you. If you go with an open mind, you just might be surprised at just how well what you find works in your particular garden!
The project started out with our finding some really heavy duty galvanized steel corrugated roofing at our local salvage yard. We then rented an electric nibbler tool to split them lengthwise, as they were too wide or deep to use by themselves.
This is the pile after getting it home, splitting it on the flatbed trailer and then unloading them. A full day’s work!
The unusually large corrugations worked perfectly for us, as we flipped the ends over so they would mate with the sides, creating interlocking tabs. The material is heavy enough for us to just screw together, without needing extra supporting material.
The outside view shows the middle tab already cut, bent over and screwed together. These are strong enough to stand on the top of the sides, once the box is constructed!
Using a Sawzall – an electric reciprocating saw – the tabs are cut. There are top and bottom screws in addition to the middle ones.
After cutting, they are bent over into the channel to be screwed together, making a very strong joint or connection.
A close-up look at the finished middle tab. We used self-tapping screws to eliminate the need to drill a starter hole.
Another feature of the unique corrugations is the channel in the bottom of the side panels which perfectly fits a ¾ inch sheet of marine grade plywood that had been previously waterproofed and drainage holes drilled. After installing the plywood and securing it into the channels, we added a heat cable and hardware cloth on top to protect it from damage from gardening tools. The heating cable is desigened and made specifically for this use and is waterproof with an internal thermostat which shuts off at 70°F.
You can see the channels in the steel in the second and third photos from the top.
For the first few years, we used the bottom heated growing bed in our greenhouse. We made two of them and grew cool season salad greens during the fall, through the winter and into the following spring in the unheated greenhouse.
We used overstock cinder blocks from the local block maker to support the beds.
After installing the beds on the cinder blocks, we put in a bottom layer of sand about two inches deep. The sand keeps the heating cable out of contact with decomposing soil and provides a better heat transfer to the soil on top when the moisture seeps down.
Both growing beds were very successful in growing lots of greens throughout the winter. We often found we couldn’t keep up with all of the greens from just one bed!
The greenhouse is being updated and changed a bit to a grow room, with a solid roof as it gets way too hot in the spring and summer to grow anything, so the growing beds needed to be moved to be more useful and functional.
We experimented with a very simple container garden just off of our back deck last year – with great success. It was very close and convenient for fresh herbs and often used fresh greens – just a step out the back door! The containers were all recycled plastic – from old horse water tubs to industrial food shipping barrels cut in half. They were simply put on top of a base of cinder blocks three high for less bending and ease of gardening. Everything was arranged in a “U” shape, with access to standing on all sides.
They worked very well, so we expanded the container gardening space with adding the two growing beds on each long side of the “U”.
The slightly shorter growing bed is next to an old 100 gallon horse water tub, containing garlic chives and I’itoi onions, both acting as perennials in our climate. This photo is from the very beginning of March, after a cold and wet winter that turned warm in early spring.
Here’s a look at the updated container garden, just after moving the second growing bed. The two large plastic containers in the foreground were what we used last season and were moved to make room for the larger growing bed.
Achocha – the Unknown Cucumber Relative
Achocha is a delicious and unknown member of the cucumber family with almost complete immunity from the diseases and pests which attack other cucurbits.
Building a Recycled Growing Bed
A growing bed can be made from many materials, but when you factor in the ability to make a growing bed from recycled components, then the opportunities become almost limitless.