Allotments 4 All
Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: brownthumb2 on January 31, 2016, 10:29:30
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I ,ve been thinking a bout introducing Perennial vegetables into my allotment can any one give me names of some I should go for and seed sites I could get them from, When I google it don't come with what I want .
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Just off the top of my head because I grow them, artichokes (globe and jerusalem), asparagus, scorzonera (and salsify? But I haven't tried it), sorrel, three cornered garlic (up now, good substitute for dormant chives) and many other herbs of course, babbington leeks, species of kale that others here know more about than I do, horseradish, lovage (used like celery), potato onions.....
I once left an ordinary purple sprouting broccoli in the ground, and found that it grew enormous and sprouted again, profusely, the following year. Sometimes a stand of spinach beet, after surviving the winter, develops new clumps of leaves if you persist in chopping off the flowering spikes.
http://www.perennialveg.org.uk/ this gives exhaustive lists, and sources.
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oca, yacon, daubenton's kale, garlic chives aka Chinese chives. If you want a couple of tubers/seeds/cuttings pm me. As Artichoke says, both types of artichokes. Think there is a perennial cauli called Nine star but not too sure.
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Just off the top of my head because I grow them, artichokes (globe and jerusalem), asparagus, scorzonera (and salsify? But I haven't tried it)
http://www.perennialveg.org.uk/ this gives exhaustive lists, and sources.
Salsify is mostly biennial - but I prefer it to scorzonera - it tastes very similar and is easier to use - the 1st winter roots are larger, never get woody and can be cleaned to cooking standard by scrubbing - don't have that black skin that has to be removed. Scorzonera roots can be bigger in their 2nd+ winters but mine all got attacked by multiple pests - plus the bottom half dies off in waterlogged soil - and the flowers aren't as nice as salsify's.
I would agree with everything artichoke recommends in his full post, but in the www.freewebs.com/perennialveg list there are a lot of what you could call "famine foods" - nobody would eat them while there's an alternative - and some of them are horrible weeds to boot eg. ground elder :BangHead:. Odd, since they had the decency to leave out horseradish.
But for good flavour I can recommend both sorrels, winter & pink purslane (though the latter only grows in pots for me - often volunteers too - lovely candy-stripe flowers) sea beet tastes better than chard, winter savory is supposed to improve jer. 'chokes.
In the roots I can recommend chinese artichokes (but treat like rampant mint), the excellent but wandering 'earth-nut' (tuberous) Pea (prefers light soil, loves rotted woodchip**), oca, skirret, and of course yacon is pretty much magic (but avoid american groundnut - the tubers need a swamp to stop them being dry, and even then the flavour is nothing special). I have heard good things about camas (camassia, quamash) but also about swamp arrowroot/potato (Sagittaria sagittifolia) which they missed but is apparently good for a pond edge or a 'swamp in a pot'.
Hops are the only worthwhile asparagus substitute, and seakale is worth growing for ornament and its blanched sprouts are an interesting delicacy. Of the alliums I can recommend welsh onion - I am just about to try the red version.
Hope this helps.
Maybe we should poll a vegetable review? 0-5 stars each for flavour obviously and then, (in no particular order), yield & robustness vs. thugginess, pest resistance, cleanness (convenience),
ease of picking etc.
Cheers.
** grows amazingly well in the S. side of a builders' bag of 50cm rough compost topped up with 50cm of rotted woodchip - you can train the stems to tumble down the S. of the bag where they won't trouble the carrots you are hiding from carrotfly in the remaining 90%
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I have both types of artichokes, horse radish and both chives, welsh onion and walking onion cant remember which is which now ,one has tiny onions on the top ( walking ?) and one which have little black seeds (welsh? ) oh and asparagus. Shall have to look for badingston leeks and kale /cabbage
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Victoriana Nurseries do a perennial cauliflower which i have grown now for 3 years, smaller heads than normal but delicious.
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went to Victoriana site they have 5 nine star plants for £6.50 which ive ordered but wont get delivery off them till September as they've sold out plus ordered quite a few different flavoured Mints which I love but the other half hates because of their spreading habit So thank you Utopiacraig for putting me on to them
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A poll of worthwhile perennials would be interesting. I think I remember one some years ago, but it would be good to bring it up to date.
My background is in illustrating plants that were used by tribal peoples in Oman in the 1980s for food and medicine and construction (recording them for posterity). Some of them were genuinely delicious, but the rest were definitely "famine food", gnarled roots and bitter leaves.
Who will start us off?
In Poland I was once offered a "pizza" with ground elder which was beyond tough and bitter, for example.
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Victoriana Nurseries do a perennial cauliflower which i have grown now for 3 years, smaller heads than normal but delicious.
went to Victoriana site they have 5 nine star plants for £6.50 which ive ordered but wont get delivery off them till September as they've sold out plus ordered quite a few different flavoured Mints which I love but the other half hates because of their spreading habit So thank you Utopiacraig for putting me on to them
The classic 'cure' for rambling mints is to plant in a 30cm+ shallow 'bulb pot' type (preferably with one central drainage hole - ie. none near the side) and bury it in the soil with the edge exposed so you can see when it literally 'does a runner'. An old washing up bowl with a hole punched centrally in the bottom is a good choice short term - but the edges will only last a year or two in the sun.
Couve Tronchuda is an interesting cabbagey plant which for me seems to be as perennial as 9-star was. Its leaves and annual 'broccoli' harvest are much the same as any other cabbage - very good tender and sweet as collards - but lacking 'heads' an additional attraction is the petioles and leaf veins - very fleshy and quite tender - good in coleslaw and apparently a substitute for seakale.
I just checked a Portuguese page and though it is their national speciality they mention the name English Kale for it!
Well worth growing but I can't guarantee the version you get will be as perennial as the one I had - there are dozens of versions in Portugal.
Cheers.
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Other than what has already been said, I also grow and use everlasting onions. A clump forming onion used instead of spring onions and it does not produce seed.
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My celery is pretty perennial. I noticed years ago that there are tiny plantlets growing off the stems of those plants that had flowered and sometimes also off other celery plants. I rooted these and got a couple of nice clumps of celery. It comes through winter just fine and is to all intents and purposes 'perennial' with minimal work. My oldest clump is now 3 years old. I will eat them and start again in another spot in the garden just to make sure they won't deteriorate - plenty of shoots coming off the base of dried up plants right now where I had cut off the flowering stem last summer. The plantlets will be used to start my new clump. I have one clump next to a compost dalek and the celery there really appreciates the extra little bit of warmth and the compost run-off.
We are harvesting by individual stalks. Especially at the dalek clump they are very lush at the moment. We can harvest in winter, spring and autumn. In summer the plants want to flower but I am cutting most of the flower shoots off.
:wave:
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If you want to try couve tronchuda, get it from a British source not Portuguese. Southern European brassicas tend to lack frost-hardiness. Everlasting onion and perennial leeks are good; treat them like spring onions. Potato onions are another; they're much like shallots (which are mild-tasting potato onions); some are shallot sized, others are more like cooking onions.
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Hi all, interesting thread.
I missed out on Perennial Cauliflower and it is no longer available as either seeds or plants from what I can fine.
Does anyone know where I might still source this this year?
Vin lander, thanks for mentioning Couve Tronchuda, I've found somewhere with seed so will give this a try.
Thanks all Jackie
Ps I got some perennial kale from Goodlife....keep it away from Shetland ponies in adjoining fields...feisty little beggars.
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pennard plants and victoriana nursery both do nine star cauli.
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I sowed some Nine Star last year, no heading up yet (picture below) but looks healthy enough, despite my neglect. Seeds were from Pennards.
I've started a bed of Seakale, which needs a year or so to settle in, so far it's been pretty much trouble free and I can start harvesting it this year.
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Penedesenca, thanks. Tried both of those. Both out of stock.
JayB. I'll look into that, sounds interesting, I'll go read up on that :)
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I have some broccoli x Dorbenton's crosses which are looking good as broccoli. I'm going to let them grow out and flower this year, to find out whether they're really perennial, and save seed from the survivors.
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Speaking of perennials, any idea what this is. It comes up every year behind my greenhouse.
(http://pic100.picturetrail.com/VOL1098/4708695/24579638/412199391.jpg)
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Speaking of perennials, any idea what this is. It comes up every year behind my greenhouse.
(http://pic100.picturetrail.com/VOL1098/4708695/24579638/412199391.jpg)
Does it have a flower? It looks kind of familiar...
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No flower, yet :) The stem tastes abit celery like
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Lovage?
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Deb...life it is, I'm embarrassed :)I have a huge Lovage that comes up every year but it's at opposite end of garden......new sign of it but loads of this stuff at knee height
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Could it be alexanders? http://www.edenproject.com/learn/for-everyone/edible-wild-food-alexanders and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smyrnium_olusatrum
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Artichoke, I think you have it :)
Debs, sorry spellcheck went nuts in my last post...it was supposed to say if it is I'll be embarrassed f it is Lovage if I haven't recognised it, as it usually grows other side of garden :)
Thanks all :)
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What about an asparagus bed, though they are more long term and take a year or two before cropping?
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Although you stated vegetable perrenials; why not try fruit ? They're all perennials.
Also runner beans are actually perennials but difficult to over-Winter; try removing roots and replanting in Spring.
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My perennial list in the allotment The two types of chives .. Walking onions and welsh onions .. wild garlic.. Globe artichoke I think my J artichokes have rotted away in the wet as I never got round to digging them ,, Asparagus .. Black and Red currants Blue berries Goose berries Strawberries Raspberries plus normal Fruit trees and Herbs Rosemary Sage Thymes Mints Lavender ? does it count ? a Herb ... Have I forgot anything What has anyone else have ?