Sunday, September 20, 2020

Want a vegetable and fruit garden that you only have to plant once? Try perennials!

Blood veined sorrel
Sunday, September 20, 2020

Have you heard of perennial vegetables?  Well, they do exist!  You plant them once and they grow back every year.  They are the first ones to show their faces in the spring and the last to die back in the fall.  Fall is a great time to plant perennials.

The following are perennial vegetables in Zone 6/7 in the Midwest:
French sorrel, radicchio, chard, Good King Henry (spinach relative), chicory, salad burnet, rhubarb, sunchoke, daylily (yes, they are edible), ostrich fern, watercress, mountain sorrel, arrowhead, Welsh onion, Egyptian walking onion, potato onion, ramps, garlic chives, chives, groundnut, udo, asparagus, sea kale, jinenjo, Chinese yam, wood nettle, lovage, water celery, fuki, pokeweed, giant Solomon’s seal, ‘Profusion’ sorrel, silver shield sorrel, scorzonera, skirret, Chinese artichoke, dandelion, linden, nettles, ‘Western Front’ perennial kale, sylvetta arugula, Turkish rocket, Cusick’s camass, perennial sweet leek, yellow asphodel, saltbush, sea beet, ‘Tree Collards/Walking Stick Kale’, tropical tree kale, perennial broccoli (including ‘9 Star’), branching bush kale (including ‘Dorbenton’), wild cabbage, achira, taro and ‘Celery Stem’ tato, chufa, air potato, wolfberry, water lotus, fragrant spring tree, canebrake bamboo, skirret.There is a long list of perennial vegetables, particularly greens. Many are hard to find the seed for or a starter plant.  There are several that are easy to find, though!  Fall is the perfect time to plant any perennial.  Perennials are also the first up in the spring.

It is a long list.  Many are hard to find the seed for or a starter plant.  There are several that are easy to find, though!
The perennial vegetables we currently grow:
**French sorrel (good for soups, steamed or a salad green)
**Blood-veined sorrel (striking salad green)
**Chard (perennial if grown in a sheltered area)  For year round steamed greens, grow chard!
**Garden sorrel (soups, steamed or salad green)
**Corn salad (salad green)
**Radicchio (good steamed, roasted or a salad green)
**Good King Henry (spinach relative, use as a salad green)
**Salad burnett (taste somewhat like a Granny Smith apple, use fresh in salads)  Salad burnet-a great herbal salad addition
**Egyptian walking onion (use fresh for cooking or salads)  Egyptian walking onions
**Potato onions (stores well)
**Perennial kale (good steamed or as salad green)  Grow one of the super greens this year-kale
**Chives (salads or flavoring cream cheese, butter, sour cream, dips)  Add chives to your garden
**Arugula (peppery flavor, great for salads)
**French and American dandelion (great for salads)  Grow Cultivated Dandelions
**Daylily (flower buds can be eaten like green beans, flowers in salads)  Flowers that are edible
**Celery-not advertised as a perennial but ours is coming back for the third year.....  Give celery a try, an easy to grow garden staple

Other popular perennial vegetables you may want to add are sea kale, rhubarb, lovage, groundnut, asparagus, artichokes, collards, or Jerusalem artichokes.
All about asparagus   Growing artichokes and cardoons   Grow a southern favorite-collards   
Potted orange, fig and kumquat

Most fruits are also perennials:
**Apple, pear, cherry, peach, pawpaw and fig trees
**Blueberry bushes
**Grape, goji berry, passionflower, kiwi, raspberry and blackberry vines
**Strawberries
Fruit for small spaces

Fall is the perfect time to plant any perennial.  There are lots of fruit bushes available at the big box stores this time of year, too.  The varieties at the neighborhood stores will be the ones that are well adapted for your area.

You can mail order any perennial this time of year as well.


Chives in bloom
Lavender
Then there are the herbs.  Most herbs are perennials.  Here are ones we are growing.
**Oregano
**ARP and Barbeque rosemary
**Thyme
**Sage
**Chives
**Hyssop
**Horseradish
**Caraway
**Mint
**Lemon balm
**Lavender
**Tarragon

Another option for a plant 'em once are self seeding annuals. They drop seeds in the garden bed and sprout in the spring.  For more on them, 

1 comment:

  1. Perennials! Such a wonderful idea. Anyone can incorporate these into their yard, easily. I simply hadn't considered it or all the options until your post.
    Interesting in how a real person's perspective in their Own Yard is much easier to visualize than commercialized programs, and posts.

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