Growing Jicama: A Complete Profile

By Growing Home Greens Team · August 20, 2026

Jicama is worth knowing two things about before you plant it: it needs a very long season, and most of the plant is poisonous.

Only the root is food

Bonnie Plants is explicit that the above-ground portions, including leaves, flowers and seeds, are poisonous. The pods look like flat green beans and are not. This makes jicama a poor choice for a bed that children pick from unsupervised, and worth a marker if anyone else works in your garden.

The root itself is entirely safe, crisp and faintly sweet, and is the reason to grow it.

The season is the real constraint

Harvest comes about 150 days after planting, right before the first frost. That is the whole growing season in much of the country, which is why our calendar limits it to zones 8 and warmer. Where your season is shorter, you can start it indoors, but you are unlikely to size up a root worth digging.

Space plants about 12 inches apart and expect a vigorous vine running to 15 feet. Support keeps that vine off everything else; it does not change the harvest.

Dig it before the frost

The signal is the vine yellowing and dying back. Lift the roots then, before a hard frost gets to them, and store them somewhere cool and dry rather than in the refrigerator, which turns the texture mealy.

Source: Bonnie Plants, Growing Jicama.

Companion planting guide for Jicama · Find your planting dates

Typically viable in USDA zones 8-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.

Method: Start indoors: Start indoors from seed, then transplant outside. Jicama needs a head start most zones can't give it by direct-sowing alone.

See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →

How many Jicama plants fit per square foot?

Spacing: 1 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 8-15 ft.

Where to buy jicama seeds

• Botanical Interests
• True Leaf Market
• Burpee
• High Mowing Organic Seeds

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See it growing

Search YouTube for "growing jicama" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)

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Growing Jicama: A crisp root that needs 150 frost-free days, on a fifteen-foot vine whose leaves, pods and seeds are poisonous.

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