Deep Roots

by | Jul 12, 2022 | Mirliton | 0 comments

Debra Voelker (photo by Renee Lapeyrolerie)

By Renee Lapeyrolerie

Debra Voelker is Jazz Fest, Mardi Gras, costumes, and mirliton. She has roots on St. Ann Street and Ursulines Avenue. Her dad grew mirliton on Orleans Avenue and her maw maw stuffed them on Canal Street. About six years ago, Debra got mirliton seed from a friend who’d shared on a social media post that she’d put them ‘out for the taking’ from her front porch. The supplier said that she had gotten seed from an elder whose vine survived Hurricane Katrina’s winds, although we have not been able to verify the source nor the location.

However nice that would be to know, Debra’s vine has produced multiple years and she was even gifted a crop in the Summer of 2021. Surely, a Louisiana heirloom due to its reliable production and physical characteristics. Debra made a sweet mirliton pie and a soup with her bonus crop. It’s the Fall yield though that brings back memories of her mirliton-filled youth. Her maternal grandmother, or maw maw, who lived on Canal Street just two miles from where Debra now lives, stuffed her mirliton mixture back into the shells for baking, some with ground meat and others with shrimp. Debra makes a traditional stuffing and has added mozzarella, an idea she picked up from a friend. Her father’s sister used to cut mirliton up into big chunks and pickle them that way, after all, mirliton was plentiful in the family.

Debra’s dad grew a vine on the hurricane fence of the home she was raised in on Orleans Avenue near North Carrolton Avenue. She remembers the vine growing all along the fence and sometimes over the garage. She has vivid memories of accompanying him up the street to put bags of mirliton on the neighbors’ stoops. “There would be Schwegmann’s bags of them,” she said, “it was wild!” That is a common unit of measure among mirliton growers during the century-long era of a popular supermarket chain in the New Orleans region.

As we swapped stories about caring for our respective vines she lamented, “I don’t remember my dad doing a damn thing to his vine.” But she does remember a time that a mirliton tendril grabbed onto her hair. When Debra retrieved the mirliton from her friend, they were off-the-vine. She had to wait for them to sprout, she potted them, and got the vine going. For two years the vine produced fruit until a jealous dog interrupted progress in year three. She made another raised bed across the backyard and now both vines have produced and are thriving. Like most growers in the path of Hurricane Ida, her vine support was toppled, but she left it in place because she had fruit.

Recent Posts

How to test compost and manure for herbicide residue

Many gardeners attribute plant failure to manure or compost that may have been contaminated with Grazon or other herbicides.  A professional laboratory test is too expensive for the average gardener, but there is a simple, inexpensive test you can do at home.  You can...

Managing Spider Mites and Mealybugs

          Spider mites and mealybugs tend to plague mirlitons that are planted in containers, especially if kept indoors as you overwinter the plant.  You can manage mealybugs by soaking a cotton swab with 70% isopropyl rubbing alcohol and...

Secure Your Vine From Winds and Hurricanes

Strong winds and hurricanes can shred a mirliton vine and stress it enough to delay or even stop flowering. Michelle Inmpastato Glore discovered an ingenious way to inexpensively and quickly protect the vine from winds: netting. With her young plants, she sandwiches...

Quick Guide for Growing Mirlitons

Mirliton is the Haitian-French word for the Louisiana chayote (Sechium edule) vine that originated in Mexico and Central America.  Haitians brought it to Louisiana in the 19th century, and it evolved over 200 years, adapting to the climate, altitude, and diseases....

The Ideal Raised Bed: Deep and Wide

Many people's yards have poor soil or soil with inadequate drainage which makes mirliton growing difficult. Either their soil gets overly saturated or has a high clay content and does not drain well. Raised beds are the solution.  But growing mirlitons in a raised bed...

The Papa Sylvest Mirliton Variety Background

I learned of a large mirliton farm in Cut Off, Louisiana, in 2009 and traveled there to meet its owner, Vivian Danos Arceneaux. I learned it had been grown for decades and after examining the variety, I told her I wanted to give it a name to help preserve and...

Grow Your Mirliton Anywhere Using a Grow Bag

Mitchell Thomas had poor soil that does not drain well--and that’s bad news for mirlitons whose roots need to breathe. So, he developed a method of growing them in fabric “grow bags.”  He and others have gotten small crops with this technique. It enables you to grow...

Cool-Season Mirliton Growing

  We have a problem.   Anyone growing mirlitons for the past few years knows that if the heat waves don’t get your vines, the hurricanes will. The weather has changed, and the forecast is that it will only get worse- more heat waves and hurricanes. But we...

How to Plant a Spring Sprout to Prepare for a Fall Planting

Here’s a proven method of planting a spring sprout that you got too late for ground planting. Homer Baham told us about this simple method of container planting the mirliton for the summer and transplanting it into the ground in the fall.  Then he mulches it for the...

Why Are My Mirliton Leaves Turning Yellow?

Yellowing of a few leaves on a mirliton vine is normal and not necessarily caused by anything the grower did wriong. It’s usually caused by the stress of widely fluctuating soil moisture--intensive rains and droughts. You can’t control rain.  Adding fertilizers won’t...