Chayote trellises...

I often come across cropping patterns or certain agricultural practices that strike me.  We are all familiar with crops being sown on the ground.  What happens when space is a limiting factor or the farmer is a dreamy fellow?

Something like the picture here stands out from the crowd...

This is a man-made "treliss" made out of old pvc pipes and wooden poles to support a chayote vine.

Pretty isn't it?  Lost in the middle of nowhere, it is set against a bamboo hedging and a row of plants that look like vetiver.

Chayote (Sechium edule) is conventionally grown on the ground where it is allowed to extend its vines and heart shaped leaves.  It can also be tamed to grow upright along trelisses, as shown above.  In Mauritius, the Sechium edule plant is treasured for:

• Its fruit; the chayote locally known as chouchou, 
• the leaves which serve to make the traditional brede-chouchou and finally
•  its root which are lesser known but once popular in ancestral times; cambarre chouchou