Chaya Is a Tasty Perennial Vegetable

Reader Contribution by David Goodman

With chaya and I it was love at first taste. I’m not usually a huge fan of cooked greens but there’s something about the hearty, somewhat sweet taste of boiled chaya greens that keeps me reloading my plate.

In my recent post on growing Chinese Water Chestnuts, I told you that I’d be back with a look at other good perennial vegetables for the home garden. Today we’ll look at chaya. The Latin name of chaya is Cnidoscolus chayamansa and it’s also known colloquially as Mexican Tree Spinach. Some varieties have stinging hairs (my cultivar does not), some have deeply lobed leaves, and others have broad leaves (like the main type I grow) that vaguely resemble maple.

A few years ago my permaculture-minded friend Craig Hepworth gave me a couple of cuttings and I popped them in the ground. I was interested but not all that excited about a new green vegetable (I like roots and fruits!). About six months later my chaya plants had grown to about 4′ tall and I figured they could spare some leaves for the table. Since chaya, like its cousin cassava, is slightly toxic raw, I fired up a pot full of water and threw in a fistful of freshly cut greens. I didn’t expect much when I pulled a limp mess of steaming greens from the pot and transferred them to my plate. But wow… they were good. Now I’d never go without at least a few chaya plants in my yard.

Some greens, like amaranth and Ethiopian kale, can handle some of the heat of summer: chaya thrives in it. Chaya’s problem comes in the winter. This plant originated in the tropics and simply can’t stand freezing. Since I live in North Florida, I worried about losing it in the cold the first year I grew it, particularly when the frosts came and I saw my plants wilt and the stems brown out. The next spring, though, they were back – and happier than ever. New growth popped up in April and rapidly grew. At this time of year I have plants that are about 6′ – and we’ve been harvesting leaves since June.

And that’s another thing – chaya produces greens like crazy. It’s considered to be one of the most productive leaf crops in cultivation. If you live further north than its natural range, chaya can be successfully grown in a pot and brought indoors as a house plant during freezing weather.

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