List of perennial vegetables and other food plants

[diggernotdreamer]

I wondered if we could start a list of permaculture/perennial food plants that people can recommend.

Some of the plants I have been collecting are

1. Babbington Leek - Harvest over winter by cutting at soil level; the leeks regrow from the bulb. They are thinner than conventional leeks, more like baby leeks, and have a mild garlic flavour. It is also possible to harvest the bulb in late summer to store. These are smaller than an onion and taste garlicky. Grow in sun or partial shade in most soils. The flower head reaches up to two metres and is loved by bees. So far, the rooks have dug most of mine up, so I have not given them a good try yet.

2. Daubenton's kale, does not set seed so you grow from cuttings. This works really well for me and has provided our household and our animals with a good supply of leaves in the winter and tender shoots in the spring.

3. Potato onions, or multiplier onions, a little bit like shallots but with slightly larger bulbs

3. Egyptian or walking onions. I love these, I plant the little bulbils in the autumn and get some rather nice spring onions from them, the flower tops produce nice little bulbs that can be pickled and the tops can be harvested and chopped into salads

4. Yacon Nice tuber, not sure if I like the flavour that much, but I am giving them another go, lost my first lot in the bad winter of 2010.

4. Oca Rather nice little tuber and quite prolific, could be a valuable food resource along with the Yacon

5. Nine Star perennial brocolli - more like a cauliflower, growing a central head which when removed produces lots more little shoots with white head with a cauliflower flavour. Can be cut back to re-generate. Should last about 5 years before needing to replace with fresh plants

[Zech]

Ooh, I've just been thinking I'd like more perennials in my veg garden. I like the sounds of several of those, and I'll be interested to see what else people come up with. I'll add a couple of traditional ones (neither of which I've managed to grow, I have to confess. The slugs and caterpillars got the better of me):

6. Asparagus

7. Globe artichoke

[Green Aura]

Tree cabbage
Oyster plant
Lovage
Rocambole garlic
Mallow
Jerusalem artichokes
Sea kale

[tosca]

Alas not much will survive a Bulgarian winter...but I keep trying with kale,

[mamos]

Fantastic topic. thanks for posting

I really want to start growing a lot more perennials.

paul

[diggernotdreamer]

A few more. Tuberous perennials, I have these growing at the moment, the nasturtium will grow outside here quite well. Could be treated as emergency food supply

tropaeolum tuberosum or climbing tuberous nasturtium
Cinnamon vine
Yacon

[Green Aura]

Oh yes and there's salsify and scorzonera - they have pretty yellow flowers too so are quite attractive to humans as well as insects. And pignuts - never tried those.

[Odsox]

I've been thinking hard (which is difficult) and I don't think that I have ever grown any perennial vegetables at all.
I think that's mainly because there are no perennial vegetable plants that I consider to be worth growing, given the sheer variety of annual ones.
I did try growing globe artichokes but they failed to appreciate my soft Irish climate.
On the other hand, I do grow 17 different perennial fruits .... do they count under the "other food plants" category.

[mamos]

I have just started growing cut and come again Cauliflower which is a perennial and produces 10 or more small heads a year plus sprouting heads and the leaves are edible.

I have read mixed reviews so it is a bit of an experiment

paul

[diggernotdreamer]

All fruit bushes and trees are considered perennial food plants, so yes, they would defo count Odsox. At the moment, my fruit bushes consist of blackcurrant and raspberry, 5 different apples and 3 sorts of plum and of course strawberries. I am in the market for more fruit and would welcome any suggestions for good varieties.

Are you growing the Nine star perennial Mamos, if so, I grew it a good few years ago and it was very productive and I liked the flavour. It is something I am considering for next year.

[ina]

Oh yes and there's salsify and scorzonera

They are perennial? That's news to me...

[John Headstrong]

2. Daubenton's kale, does not set seed so you grow from cuttings. This works really well for me and has provided our household and our animals with a good supply of leaves in the winter and tender shoots in the spring.

I totally agree, I have a plant that I called Pippandy kale because I acquired it from a friend own picked it up at a seed swap in Cork, Ireland in 1998/9. They moved and Didn't keep some of the plant, so I gave them some back a few years ago.
I only came to believe it was "Daubenton's kale" after meeting Alan Carter from https://scottishforestgarden.wordpress. ... d-cooking/ at Scottish permaculture meeting, but I still call it Pippandy kale.

not got the Variegated one, I must get myself a plant.

[Odsox]

All fruit bushes and trees are considered perennial food plants, so yes, they would defo count Odsox.

OK then ... my list is;
Apples both cooking and eating (16 varieties)
Pears (2 var)
Mirabelle
Cherries (3 var)
Nectarine
Figs (2 var)
Grapes (2 var)
Apricot
Blackcurrant
Gooseberry (2 var)
Blueberry
Blackberry
Loganberry
Raspberry (2 var)
Gojiberry
Myrtle
Strawberries
Rhubarb
Pomegranate
Lemon

That's 3 more than I said earlier. The pomegranate and gojiberry have yet to fruit, so I don't know if they count.

[Green Aura]

I Think Salsify is perennial in the same way Jerusalem Artichokes and spuds are, ina. You leave a bit in the ground and it regrows.

We planted some in our old garden, back in Manchester, harvested it the first year and never gave it another thought. Several years later, after we'd placed a greenhouse in that area we found a lovely patch of smallish yellow daisies growing just by the door. It took us ages to work out what it was.

[diggernotdreamer]

I forgot Dahlia's, I am going to give them a go soon
Wild Rocket is also a perennial plant, if you cut them down they regrow. I replace plants after a couple of years usually with the many self sown seedlings I get from them.

I think things like salsify do manage to seed themselves around and reproduce quite well. I find if you let lettuce go, you can often find lots of handy plants you didn't know you had to lift and put elsewhere. The wild rocket is another good one as is corn salad, which I don't bother sowing as it always starts popping up somewhere in the tunnel and can be moved. I love it when you are weeding a somewhere and you spot something, I often find amaranth seedlings this way and this year found mouse melon seedlings when my sown ones had failed