This yard’s hardly hubris-worthy, for now, and if my current losing battle with a lone grasshopper isn’t enough to rein in a bought of unproductive pride, then the time I spent today tearing up and tossing out those triumphant tomatoes should be.

And it’s not like they burst onto the spring scene as paragons of this South American native.  They were just doing better than the season before, which is a pretty low bar.  Last year I grew them from seed, planted them in the yard, then watched as they were successively mowed down by varmints every time they sprouted above a few inches.  The fact that they rebounded while the pests slept off their summer bender and had become bushy and a few feet tall had me talking of perennial tomatoes that produce year-round.

Well, mild weather overwinters more than plants.  The first indications that these tomatoes were ill-fated was present almost from moment the cold weather lifted.  Many of the leaves developed what looked like a yellow rash, and the plants lost their healthy deep green.  Growth ceased.  Flowers wouldn’t set fruit.  Inputs of fresh compost from our pile and iron-rich mulch failed to counter what looked like a nutrient deficiency.  The soil was neither too wet nor too dry.

A local nursery identified a sample I provided as having spider mites, an incredibly tiny (less than 1 mm) insect that spins silk webbing on the undersides of leaves.  The mite punctures and feeds on individual plant cells, and when the weather is warm and dry (i.e., no frost), eggs can hatch in three days and the young can be sexually mature in five.  Like aphids, this is a reproductive cycle that can be hard to keep pace with — especially in a chemical-free yard.

The overwintered tomatoes were inundated.  Nearly every leaf had the sallow look of infestation.

A strong blast of water can dislodge the mites, which once knocked to the ground are unlikely to find their way back to a leaf.  However, the density was such that even regular, repeated washings failed to impact the population.  I combined the spraying with a light, weekly application of an organic pesticide called End All (a sterling non sequitur).  The fact that the packaging included several prominent references to the product’s organic merits, and that the company went by the name “Safer”, made me skeptical.  However, it came highly recommended, so I gave it a try.  It, too, failed to significantly reduce the number of mites after several weeks.  In a desperate move, I trimmed off every branch with a hint of discoloration, denuding the plants, but this also failed.

The final blow came when the tomatoes began to develop powdery mildew, perhaps as a result of the frequent dousing the leaves received in my attempt to wash away the spider mites.  Fearing that the mites and the mildew would spread to this season’s Brandywine, Yellow Pear, Gardener’s Delight Cherry, Ace, and Cherokee Purple — I pulled those tomatoes that overwintered out, not even giving them the dignity of the compost pile to avoid risking contamination and encouraging future outbreaks.

So the brilliantly overwintered tomatoes now sit in the trash, annuals after all.

The orange tree out back of our kitchen announces spring for us each year with thousands of white buds and a citrus scent I can smell from across the yard.  It did so this past week, and it always surprises me in its timing because it seems like we just finished eating last season’s fruit.

The orange isn’t the only bellwether.  As I’ve been prepping for spring planting I’ve noticed lemon and almond buds swelling, strawberry blooms here and there, and a first asparagus spear — fat enough this year for eating.  New leaves on the mulberry tree and grape vines have begun to bring the color back.

All welcome beginnings.  The perennials make it look so easy.

A few weeks ago I planted a perennial gourd called a Chayote, and in this brief period of time it has displayed the durability I’d hoped for in this enduring class of plants.  If the squirrels and rabbits are too numerous to be controlled and starved of other edibles by drought (which they are), then I need plants that can defend themselves or take a hit.

The Chayote can take a hit.

This cucurbit resembles a large pear that’s been smashed a little, creating a gnarly fold that tucks inward and runs along the base of the fruit.  Inside sits a single, edible seed reminiscent of an artichoke heart.  The Chayote is often referred to as a squash since it shares so many attributes with this plant to which it is related.  I bought one for 69 cents at a market — just any old one out of a pile shipped from Mexico — and set the whole gourd in a dark, cool, dry cupboard to germinate.  In a week’s time the fold parted a little, and an albino shoot sprouted and grew upward, despite the absence of light to direct it.

It had grown to about eight inches before I got it in the ground (six is better).  I left only the tip of the vine exposed, yet within a few hours it had been gnawed into the earth by some animal and dug at.  I fenced it off anyway and gave it regular waterings, and within two weeks a healthy, green vine had developed, leafed out, and sent tendrils searching for something to climb.

The tough, whole fruit planted deep proved key.  A typical, annual squash seed would have been eaten with the rest of the immature vine since it is planted at a depth of only an inch or so, and even if it had survived the nibbling, it likely wouldn’t have had the energy to re-sprout.

If it makes it, this Central American native will become a robust, 30-foot vine producing heavy loads of crisp, yet mild-flavored fruits that can be substituted for summer squash in any recipe.  At the end of the season, the vine will die back, then grow again each year without the need for replanting.

And with any luck, it will stay tough.

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.