A perennial fruit and vegetable garden by Hatchet & Seed. (Photo: Kelly Brown)
Eat more local foods — out of your backyard or community garden, if possible.
Solara Goldwynn of Hatchet & Seed, calls them “edimentals” — edible, ornamental plants — and supplied a list.
Perennial vegetables are great because they:
- Keep coming back and can be left all winter!
- Withstand pests better than annuals
- Build and improve soil quality
- Don’t need tilling, leaving mycelial culture (mushrooms and other fungi) and soil structure intact
- Increase aeration and water absorption
- Create compost, add to topsoil and bring up nutrients from deep down when dropped leaves die back each year
- Are edimentals — delicious AND beautiful!
- Are often long-lived — e.g., asparagus lives up to 40 years!
- Create resilience when planted from seed (avoid moulds, pests and diseases)
- Use microclimates around trees
Know your plants. Related species may not be edible. If you’re unfamiliar with any of these plants, do some research or take a workshop to be sure you know which parts are best to eat.
Twenty three edible perennials
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Need a warm, protected spot. Varieties include globe and cardoon (wild). Blanch stalks and eat them cooked, too! Note: sunchokes and Jerusalem artichokes tend to spread.
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Buy crowns or start from seed. From seed to shoot takes three years! Before prepping your bed, think long-term (they live up to 40 years) and keep soil mounded.
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Grows well in shade. Shoots are edible.
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A sedge tuber found in wet areas. Popular in Spain.
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Grow in pots (even an old bath tub) since tubers are large and will go deep. Use the vine to create shade.
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Hardy plant that grows more than two metres tall. Extremely nutritious due to many years accumulating minerals. Great flavour. Tender enough to eat raw.
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Flowers are best to eat as buds, before they open.
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Easily grown from seed. Green tops similar to parsley.
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Enjoys shade. Shoots are edible. Looks like spinach.
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A nitrogen-fixing ground tuber with climbing vines. Native to the East Coast. Contains 16 per cent protein (potatoes are five per cent protein).
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Eat the shoots in spring.
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Edible early before leaves get big (when it looks a bit like asparagus).
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A perennial leek. Eat as you would leeks or harvest entire bulbs.
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Stronger tasting than celery. Leaves are great in soups.
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From the Andes. A single tuber costs about $3.50. Flowers and leaves are edible. Similar to oca.
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Best in early spring. Easy to grow from seed. Prefers a moist, shady area. Cook young leaves like spinach or use in tea. A popular dye plant. Promotes good soil. Great in compost, too.
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From the Andes. Needs full sun but can survive in partial shade. Harvest the bulb after frost, once above-ground greens die back. Once harvested, lay in the sun to sweeten. Prepare as you would potatoes.
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All parts are edible, even flowers! Varieties include Welsh, garlic chives and walking onions. Bees love ’em!
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Only eat stalks — leaves and roots are toxic. Compost leaves. Happy near a compost heap!
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Related to dill, parsley, celery, cilantro and carrot. Shoots and roots taste like parsnip.
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Great in soups or pesto! The French variety grows in clumps.
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Eat shoots, flowers and leaves. Note: This spreads!
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This giant tuber from South America is a heavy feeder and gets tall. Harvest after frost. Pot in winter, replant in spring!
