Perennial vegetables

Hi food forest fans,

I thought it would be useful if we created a list of perennial vegetables that would be suitable additions to food forests. It seems one of the benefits of food forests is that perennial plants produce more food for less work. That's clear with fruit trees, but perennial vegetables are a more uncommon idea.

You could reply to this discussion with any knowledge you have eg include name of vegetable, what climate or region it suits, any leads on where it can be bought/sourced, other useful facts to know.

By the way, Perennial Vegetables by Eric Toensmeier is a useful book, but written about what is available in the USA, hence why an NZ-focused list would be useful.

 

Kumara - naturally a perennial in warm climates, but treated as an annual in temperate areas. Can propogate by putting store-bought kumara in a box of sand in spring and letting sprout. Plant out sprouts late October. We live in Auckland and have left our vines in place to see if they can grow here perennially and produce more tubers. Leaves died down over winter. Will let you know if they come to life.

 

 

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  • Love this link - keen to see more replies too!  We have a food forest group here in Alexandra, central Otago, and have just confirmed with council the opportunity to rescue a disused piece of council land to create a food forest.  Very excited!!  We've got a pretty good idea of some of the common perennials we'll be able to grow here, as well as some of those easy to grow annuals to fill in gaps and provide food and mulch.  Would be keen to hear more on some more unusual edibles / food forest beneficals too.

  • Glad I found this thread,  thanks Wayne.

    I started the forest garden process in earnest with a new swale that we put in last year, partly as a way to keep the buttercup from taking over. Now, every time we dig one out we replace it with something, actually anything from among the stuff we want to grow. The main objective for planting the swale is new fruit trees but underneath them we are planting guavas, orangeberry, red currants (just jam the prunings in and let them go), a wide range of herbs and flowers that are endemic elsewhere on the place, such as calendula, phacelia, feverfew and comfrey of course, some tagasaste and a bunch of food crops like peas, broadbeans, parsnip, kale, sunflowers (all now seeding themselves) and as Wayne suggested, kumera. Its coming up fine, but how well did your experiment go?

    We have also planted massed globe artichokes as a food source, insect attractant and as a wind shelter for one of our main gardens. Looking forward to that. Our Jerusalem artichokes are in a barely controlled block that makes great shelter in summer and plenty of compost materials in autumn. We have solved the fart problem to some degree by cooking with LOTS of ginger.

    Thanks for all the lists, we'll work on them.

  • Hi yes, this is a really useful discussion, this is my passion! Our nursery focuses on food forest plants and our website has a section on perennial vegetables. We are adding more to the list all the time and you can go on our newsletter for updates. Martin Crawford has a useful book on perennial vegetables and we have listed our plants according to his list, though some, like lemon balm, are not exactly what you'd call staples.  I haven't grown lettuce in ages, our salads are solely from perennials. Salad burnet and sorrel are two of my favourites.  See http://kahikateafarm.co.nz/perennial-vegetables.html

  • Dahlias are my latest perennial vege... Haikai Tane, said they ate them commonly in China, I have always loved them- easy and prolific. We had them for dinner last night in a stifry- very nice, like yacon but less sweet with a celery like taste- very Asian.

    Need to cooked well and eaten in small doses as they contain inulin which can give wind and digestive upsets. I feel no problem today though. Flower petals can be eaten too. But the tubers are easy easy food. grow all summer with bee attractant blooms, then haves tubers. In Golden Bay, top of South Island, they can winter over fine, so harvest when ever. In a couple of years they multiply heaps !! so you can spread them wherever. 

    The tuber I used for dinner, I had pulled up 2 months ago and hadn't planted, I peeled it cause its skin was tough but inside it was still crisp like yacon! I imagine it would be also good in stews or soups.

    I had been meaning to try them for ages and I'm so pleased they are yummy and useful... a great food forest plant, grow about a metre of less high... prolific.

  • Kia ora Wayne,

    Asparagus- once the crowns are set up are perennial each spring

    Scarlett runner beans- they die back in winter but resprout in Spring.  Not only are they perennial but a legume- double points for food forest!

    Rhubarb- A fruit maybe but still perennial- many varieties, esp in old gardens

    Welsh bunching onions- clump like chives- Koanga Institute I think

    Pikopiko- the hen and chicken fern, grown in shadey areas, and not where kumara etc are grown.

    Peruperu/ Urenika/ tutae kuri purple potatoes continue to come up year after year

    jerusalem artichoke- keep coming up 

    globe artichoke- a long lived plant whose flowers are eaten

    watercress-once a bed is established, it can be managed and picked each spring

    Great idea to get this list going

    Donna

  • Yes I think a NZ focused book would be awesome

  • Auckland seedsavers are having there seed swap and AGM this Saturday at the Auckland Botanic Gardens Manurewa  9-10 seed cleaning sorting and packing10-12 seed collection and seed swap.  There will be a short talk by Stella Christoffersen who is our curator, and owns Running Brook seeds.Bring any spare seeds, seedlings, cutting material, roots of perennial vegetables and  useful plants for the trading tables and a small plate for morning tea. All welcome Gold coin entry. Futher information Kathrina Muller 09 2671260 or saimuller@paradise.net.nz

     

     

  • Here in Southland the easiest perennial vegetables are the artichoke family, globe Jerusalem and Cardoons.

    Cardoons  stems are the part you eat but you need to be blanched (like leeks excluding the light for a few days before harvest from the stalks). We have successfully blanched it and made a lovely soup.  We have sea beet which we can harvest leaves year round- it has a red and white striped stem.  Too cold down here for kumera but we do find that urenika potatoes come back year after year in the same patch with no disease issues.    There is a really good book called 'Simply living-  a gathers guide to NZ;s fields forests and shores by Gwen Skinner which is great to learn how too cook 'wild' plants.  She mentions young comfry leaves in salad or fried in batter.  We have french sorrel that comes back very early each spring and would love some viable Good King Henry seeds too!  We have fat hen which is in the same family and this used to be eaten widely by humans in the past e.g. Bog mans last meal was fat hen.  Our nettle patch also regenerates each year and nettle soup is lovely.  I think these are all annuals that reseed so easily if left wild rather than perennials.   Will look into the veges others are growing and see if any would be suitable down here.

  • I would love to know more perennial vetables we could use in Auckland.  I believe in some places Kumura is used as a green not just a root.  A Taiwanese neighbour told me his job after school was to pick and cook the kumura shoots to fatten the pigs.

    I grow artichokes (Jerusalem, globe and Chinese) The globe tastes good and is supposed to be good for the liver, doesn't provide that much vegetable for the space but it is decorative.

    the Jerusalem has disadvantages because of its aftereffects and it does not store that well.  It is fiddly to prepare especailly if you want to peel it.  The Chinese artichoke is even harder to prepare, and I have only found recipes, in books where it is assumed you employed a cook to prepare the food.  

     

    I have been using yacon, and find that tastey and easy to prepare.

    choko does not have much flavour but can be used for curries etc.  The baby chokos are great in stirfries, - use them about thumb nail size.  Choko tips are good in stir fries as well,

    I did try Nine star perennial cauliflower but it didn't survivie that well.  I don't know if it was just the wrong place or I didn't look after it well enough and pick it early enough.  I woun't mind trying it again some time.

    "Creating a forest garden"  by Martin Crawford mentions a variety including plants I did not realise were edible such as Aquilegia, vuylgaris or grannys bonets, which I have tried in a salad a couple of times since I read it.  Solomons seal which I haven't tried.  Also I remeber seeming in a permaculture magazine that Hosta was a popular spring vegetables in certain parts of Japan.

    the main problem I find is that often people don't know how to make the best use of these vegetables.  For example Cardoon is always listed as a perennial vegetable, but I have not yet found anyone who says they have cooked it.

    Other perennial  vegetable I have include edible canna, aspargus, good King Henry, perennial leeks, japanese parsley.  Others I have are annuals, but just keep self sowing and include miners letters, lambs lettuce and land cress. 

    I would love to hear what other people have tried, both growing and eating some of these plants.

    • Hi Kathrina,

       

      Yacon

      Do you grow Yacon as a perennial? If so, any tips for harvesting the tubers so as to not damage the plant? We grew some last season and threw out the plants, only hearing later they are perennial.

       

      Kumara

      Kumara leaves and shoots are delicious in a stir fry, a trick we learned from my wife's Malaysian grandmother. The shoots you need to peel with your fingernail - a bit fiddly so can just eat the leaves. Just don't pick so many that it weakens the plant or your tubers may turn out smaller. We added garlic and shrimp paste for flavour.

       

      choko

      Can't wait to try baby chokos. We have a couple of vines but yet to convince the family they are tasty. Problem may be I was harvesting big old chokos.

       

      Good King Henry

      Is this available in your standard plant shops? How do you eat it?

       

      Brassicas

      Does anyone know if other types of perennial brassica are available in NZ? Toensmeier had one called Tree Collard which sounded tasty and useful.

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