Topic: permaculture

[aquilegia]

I've got interested in permaculture, mostly as a way to have an edible garden with a bit less work (due to my health problems, I don't have a lot of energy!)

Obviously I know about the use of  fruit trees, soft fruits, herbs, asparagus, artichokes (although only globe for me thanks!) wild garlic...

What other edible plants are there that are periennial?

(heavy clay soil, around london, if soil and weather makes any difference to answers!)

[Silverleaf]

Great list here. http://backyardlarder.co.uk/plants/perennial-vegetables/

[galina]

Great list Silverleaf.  May I add celery?  I have a celery that seems to have gone perennial without a problem.  It multiplies from little offsets from the base of the plants, which in turn grow into big plants.  It also still flowers and makes seeds.  I used to transplant a couple of plants to the greenhouse over winter, but so far I have not had any losses over winter.  Every spring I get a good harvest of succulent stalks and in autumn after flowering (I cut off most flowering stalks, but always miss a few) the old plant dies off and the plantlets from the base grow into new big plants. The original seed was from a seed swap with a US gardener, but I am sure that other celery, especially the smaller 'soup celery' types can be made perennial too 

[aquilegia]

I didn't realise wild rocket was perennail. I'm growing that this year anyway!

I also had no idea celery was perennial. (if I can spell properly!)

[Vinlander]

Great list here. http://backyardlarder.co.uk/plants/perennial-vegetables/

I would add 4 - they are all roots so they are only perennial by replanting a tithe :

Yacon & Oca - pretty much flavour of the month - look them up. Good yield.

Rampion - beautiful lilac/pink bell-flowers and small, smooth, white tubers but delicious, sweet and crispy for salads. Plants are small (two years were as long as I could keep my hands off them) so you need to grow a lot -  expect a quarter the yield you'd get from the area. I'd be interested to hear from anyone doing better.

I don't know if they grow from tubers - they are too delicious.

Lathyrus tuberosus - tubers taste like sweet chestnuts - the only 'sub' vegetable that is anything like the real thing (all the asparagus subs are a bad joke*). Unfortunately it rambles - too weak to be a real weed but best grown in a trench lined with plastic (pierce the middle of the bottom only) - because otherwise you won't find the damned dark thumb-sized tubers against the dark soil. They grow even better (to medium yield) in rotted woodchip (lined trench or builders bag) - and then they are a lot easier to find. They will grow from tubers or any even slightly lumpy root strings you can't eat.

NB. the lined trench is the only sensible way to grow chinese artichokes - delicious but a real weed if they escape.

Cheers.

PS* Also Hop shoots are delicious treated as asparagus, and well worth collecting - they just don't taste anything like it - all the other 'subs' are tasteless (or just plain horrible).

[Vinlander]

I forgot Sculpit - a regional speciality in many Mediterranean  countries (Silene vulgaris). I would describe it as a middling-to-good spinach substitute with a slippery texture - better than chard (certainly more tender) but the leaves are quite small and narrow so take a lot of picking.

I don't know why it is used in risottos, but I would guess it helps produce that silky smooth texture because there is quite a lot of mucilage in it (there must be a nicer word - I suppose thin gum is the best I can do).

I would be tempted to try using it to make a gumbo without okra - but I'd have to make a normal one first to remind me what it's supposed to taste like, and even after that I'd only try if I had no okra to hand (I like okra a lot but it's quite difficult to grow well).

The texture might enhance a nice cheese pie/samosa/thing, though a cheese and okra pie might be even better...

Cheers.