When crops start small, they start vulnerable. This was an essential weakness of my warm season crop: 90 percent of the loss occurred early in the plant’s development. Birds pulled just-sprouted veggies from the ground to eat the seed off the bottom, leaving the first inch of growth to wither in the would-be garden. Rabbits and squirrels nibbled to the ground the seedlings I’d started indoors, as well as several rounds of replacements from Home Depot.
It seems like the small and vulnerable stage would be hard to avoid since all creatures pass through it at some point; I concede that I have no trick for bypassing this early development. But not everything has to do it every season. I watched my Gala Apple tree leaf out, bloom, and fruit without the slightest disturbance, and I wondered how such resilience could be transferred from the orchard to the vegetable garden. (In truth, if a rabbit or squirrel had been able to take out this 12-foot tall tree, we would have moved.)
The thought of going all orchard crossed my mind. But you can only have so many trees on a suburban lot before it looks crowded, and we’ve already got a plum, an orange, a Bartlett Pear, and two Gala Apples in the ground, and three avocados, a tangelo, a pear, and an almond waiting to be planted. And we’re trying to protect our canyon view out the back.
We already have grapes, strawberries, and asparagus established (and hopefully producing next year), but what about more vegetables that stick around and toughen up so they’re less likely to get taken out by pests?
Perennial vegetables form an interesting set of crops, at least those that can be grown in my region. Many of them strike me as near-edibles, the kind of thing that Bear Grylls eats on Man vs. Wild, not so much by choice but to survive. And many of them have potent adaptations — defense mechanisms that help them survive year-round. In searching for perennial vegetables for my space, I passed on a number of options because they require special preparation or else they are poisonous. For experienced cooks or bolder gardeners than myself, this challenge might not be a deterrent to growing a number of different plants. For me, I don’t want to end meals by wondering if I just poisoned my wife.
Despite this hesitation, I like the “not your mother’s vegetable” quality that many perennials have, the fact that you absolutely won’t find them at Ralphs, and probably can’t even find some of them at the farmer’s market. Sure, some that I’ll try are common like our asparagus. I found that lima beans, runner beans, and sweet potatoes can be grown as perennials, and I plan to try. In the coming months I will also plant nine star broccoli; chayote squash; winged and hyacinth beans; ceylon, sissoo, and New Zealand spinach; perennial cucumber; and Egyptian walking onions.
If I can find them, that is. As we have become a common crop society, limited by ourselves and mono-crop industrial farming, we have consistently reduced the acreage devoted to fruits and vegetables that fall outside the mainstream. But these are growing somewhere. All I have to do is find the person with the seed.
My hope is that these perennials will become durable lifers, that if I can coddle them along to adulthood once, or once every few years, they will be able to hold their own against my local pests and I can move away from caged gardening. That they will bring some stability to my edible yard in the coming year.
As always … we’ll see.
The New Zealand spinach is very interesting. I had no idea about that one until now. It is interesting it was also called Sea spinach and was taken to sea to fight Scurvy.
Very interesting stuff. Thanks for the links to the things you mention. That is a big help in looking for more information.
I love perennials for there constancy. Two that are popular in our home are sorrel and sunchokes. We also love Egyptian Walking Onions. I am looking forward to increasing edible perennials in our garden. New Zealand spinach is on the list for next year.