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Spring: Season of Perennial Vegetables in the Cold-Climate Garden (MA, USA)

Excerpted from Paradise Lot by Eric Toensmeier with contributions from Jonathan Bates.

Bates and Toensmeier will be hosting a perennial vegetable tasting and edible landscaping workshop at their garden in Holyoke, MA, USA this April 26, 2014.


Jonathan Bates with spring perennial vegetables

From the beginning of my interest in plants for permaculture and edible landscaping I identified perennial vegetables as a real gap in the available information. Nobody seemed to know what perennial leaves, roots, and shoots could grow under or between fruit trees, nut trees, and berry bushes. I spent a number of years accumulating information on the species which culminated in the publication of Perennial Vegetables in 2007. Since then I’ve presented many workshops for master gardeners groups, organic growers, and landscape professionals. Everyone seems shocked to learn that we have such a fine palette of long–lived and low–maintenance vegetable crops for cold climates. The fact that many of them are fine ornamentals is a lovely bonus as well.

In 2000 Jonathan and I ordered seeds of perennial veggie crops from some unusual companies, including the amazing French company B & T World Seeds, who offer more than 18,000 species and varieties. Seed packets and shipping were not cheap, but we only had to do it once (that’s the great thing about perennials!). We grew out the pants and transplanted them here to our new home when we moved in 2004. At this point many of them are ten years old and still going strong, producing leaves, broccolis, shoots, roots, and fruits.

After the long desolation of a Massachusetts winter, things start to move pretty quickly after the snow thaws. This is the season of perennial vegetables, and the time that their advantages over annual crops become very clear. In the time it takes to get annual crops ready to eat outside, we have already gone through three months of perennial vegetable harvest. At that point the perennials pass the baton to the annuals, having bolted and lost their flavor until the coming fall or spring.

In March, as the snow melts, the bedraggled remains of last year’s perennial vegetables poke out. Though there is some freezing damage on the leaf tips, baby greens are already coming up here and there throughout the garden.


“Profusion” sorrel

Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) is an overlooked vegetable in most gardens. The sour leaves are typically good eating in spring but quickly lost to bolting and bitterness. We grow a non–flowering variety called “Profusion” that never flowers. It just keeps on cranking out fresh leaves all season long. Partial shade, drought, and even two feet of snow only seem to slow it down temporarily. Sorrel is a great example of a multifunctional permaculture species, because its deep roots concentrate nutrients from the subsoil. Calcium, phosphorus, and potassium accumulate in the leaves and are made available to neighboring plants over time as the leaves break down into the soil again. Sometimes we speed this process up by cutting back our sorrels and mulching with them. This also causes a flush of tender new growth. “Profusion” sorrel is also notable for the density of its growth. We planted a dense row of it as a barrier between two different types of ground cover and have had good success. Sorrel also grows very nicely in the greenhouse all winter.


Water celery, aggressive but abundant

Like sorrel, water celery (Oenanthe javanica) pokes its head up early and has tender shoots waiting and ready as the snow melts. From now to the end of April these greens are among our favorite salads. Sometimes Jonathan and I get down on our hands and knees and graze on it like sheep. Its parsley–celery flavor gets to be too strong by the end of May, but boy are we happy to have it in March, and again in late fall. We have found water celery can be quite a weed in our water garden, so to keep it under control we have a patch in dry partial shade. This slows it down to the point that it often dies back completely in mid-summer.


Caucasian spinach, quite delicious

Early spring is also the season of sprawling spinach shoots (Hablitzia tamnoides). Like a skinny asparagus with tender leaves, this is a high-class vegetable. Though we have had trouble finding the perfect location and conditions for it, one plant in somewhat moist partial shade has persisted about four years now. By April, shoot season has passed and the season of edible leaves has begun. These can be eaten raw well into June. Few perennial vegetables can compete with that lengthy season.


Sunchoke puts on dramatic growth

March is not too late to harvest last year’s perennial root crops. Some, like sunchokes (Helianthus tuberosa), are at their absolute best this time of year. Sunchokes, also known as Jerusalem artichokes, store their energy as starch in their tubers over the winter, but as spring comes they convert to sugar in anticipation of the growing season. What is a decent vegetable in the fall becomes almost as sweet as apples in spring.


Tubers of groundnut

We dig other root crops in early spring as well, like skirret (Sium sisarum), Chinese artichoke (Stachys affinis), and groundnuts (Apios americana). For many years I was not a huge fan of groundnut tubers. They seemed a second–rate substitute for potatoes. We still grew plenty of them anyway, because they are native, high in protein, and fix nitrogen. But it wasn’t until I read Samuel Thayer’s The Forager’s Harvest that I learned how to deal with groundnuts in the kitchen. Thayer suggests treating them like the bean relative that they are. Following his advice, I mashed up some boiled groundnuts with chili spices and cheese as though they were refried beans. Suddenly this high–protein native crop had found its place in my diet.


Ramps, the wild forest leek of the eastern forest

April comes and plants are leafing out everywhere in the garden. The absolute delicacy of spring for us is ramps (Allium tricoccum). This native wild leek grows in the shade of moist deciduous woods throughout Eastern and North America. I had always read about Appalachian ramp festivals where the whole town reeked of garlic for days. When we lived at Wonder Bread Organic Farm Jonathan and I decided to host our first Ramp Festival, a tradition we continued for four or five years. This celebration of spring abundance brought friends with dishes like nettle quiche and Japanese knotweed crisp. Our friend Frank Hsieh brought whole roasted spring lamb from his farm.

I had been keeping an eye on a patch of ramps across the street from a Subway the next town over for several years. My sustainable harvests had provided the ramps for many of our festivals. Then one year I drove by to visit the ramps and to my horror saw that a large condominium development was going in. I rounded up a crew from the ramp Festival and we rescued hundreds of plants. Today they and their progeny are growing in our garden (and many others as well).


Perennial scallions (Allium fistulosum)

Perennial scallions come into their own in April too. If you grow scallions from seed you can time the harvest to have them any time of year. That’s very nice but a bit more work than we had in mind. Every spring our Welsh and walking onions send up their new scallions. We dig or divide their clumps for harvest and transplanting. This glut of scallions is welcome after a long winter and is put to use in fried rice and scrambled eggs. Fall brings a second flush of scallions, which are welcome again.


Giant fuki at close to full size

At the base of our bamboo, in the shade of a feathery–leafed mimosa, grows a plant with enormous round leaves up to three feet across. This is fuki (Petasites japonicus giganteus), a popular wild edible in Japan and a very bold statement in the landscape. Not content to grow ordinary fuki with its eighteen-inch leaves, we obtained the giant form. I was pleased to learn that giant fuki is sterile and thus has no chance of dispersing into the environment — besides, that is, its incredibly aggressive rhizomes. But our fuki is hemmed in by bamboo rhizome barriers on two sides and a frequently traveled path on the other. We actually wish it would grow faster so that we could harvest more, because fuki is a favorite spring vegetable on both sides of our duplex. Like rhubarb, it’s the leaf stalk that is eaten, but fuki is more analogous to celery as a vegetable. We boil the stalks, peel them by hand, and marinate them in umeboshi or raspberry vinegar with some shredded ginger and tamari.

Some people balk at the labor involved in processing crops like fuki. To me I don’t mind spending fifteen extra minutes in processing a vegetable that took no work to grow since I planted it four or five years before. It’s just a question of whether you account for the labor in growing as well as cooking your food.


Good King Henry

April brings an embarrassment — perennial vegetables riches just keep coming. Asparagus, good King Henry (Chenopodium bonus-henricus), and giant Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum commutatum) provide tasty shoots. Even the tightly curled shoots of hostas can be cooked up this time of year, though I admit they’re not my favorite. But you’d be hard pressed to find a hardier vegetable for full shade. Violet leaves are usually fairly bland, but Dave Jacke introduced me to a cultivar called “Rebecca” which has remarkable vanilla–mint flavored leaves and flowers that are quite delightful. Another April favorite are the wasabi–like roots of the eastern native toothwort (Dentaria diphylla). This delightful groundcover has piquant horseradish-flavored roots and leaves. I’m convinced that a commercial producer could market the roots to the finest sushi restaurants.


Yum! Purple asparagus

The king of cold–hardy perennial vegetables is asparagus, and around here May is the peak of harvest. We grow “Purple Passion”, and its fat spears keep coming for more than a month. Fresh–steamed asparagus is as good an argument for turning your lawn into a garden as anything I can imagine.


Sea kale broccolis

When I first saw sea kale, I fell in love. Against the dark green garden foliage, the powdery blue-green sea kale called out, coaxing me in for a closer look. The purple hues of the new leaves added to the beauty. Although the tender spring leaves are edible, kinda like collard greens, our experience is that the plant adds only a half dozen leaves a year, and are the plant’s summer solar panels. Eating them would put an end to the plant in short order (an alternative is to eat some leaves in the fall after most of the growing has taken place). We have come to love not the leaves, but the early spring broccolis. Along with the first six to eight inches of tender new flower stalk growth, the broccolis, or “broccolitas”, can be eaten raw, mixed into salads, or lightly cooked with butter and salt, or added to a vegetable stir-fry. Outstanding.

From the beginning, we have experimented with hundreds of species of little-known plants. Like sea kale, many of the plants are perennial vegetables. A perennial vegetable being a plant that re-grows for three or more years, and has some part of it that is eaten like a vegetable. Like asparagus, sea kale broccolis are ready to pick weeks before most annual vegetables can be planted. Perennial broccolis like sea kale can be grown as permanent, low maintenance, early season vegetables. By extending the growing season in this way gardeners can grow delicious vegetables for more days out of the year.

Many of you reading this may ask why more people aren’t growing perennial vegetables like sea kale. One answer may be that a monoculture of annual broccoli can grow more calories then a monoculture of asparagus or sea kale. But, what does it really take to grow broccoli these days? And how much soil is being eroded from all the plowing and cultivation? Not to mention the chemicals, fuel, and water it takes. From our experience perennial vegetables can be grown with a lot less labor and inputs, with zero soil erosion. Perennial veggies don’t fit the typical monoculture mindset, and our industrial, “turn a profit fast”, “economies of scale” food system.

When mixed with a diversity of other perennial vegetables, fruits and nut producing trees and shrubs, and grown in multistory polycultures, the minor yield shortcomings of sea kale fall by the wayside.

Because our sea kale has lived as long as ten years, we’ve been able to enjoy its flowering season every spring. Imagine an explosion of three-foot tall, snow white bundles of small flowers, filling the garden with a voluminous honey scent. Take that annual broccoli! It’s a fantastic bee attractor too.


Turkish rocket broccolis

But wait, there’s more! Yes, another “broccolita” in our garden — Turkish rocket also forms a broccoli (kind of like broccoli raab) with a pungent mustardy tinge. It is best cooked, giving it a nutty flavor. Over the last few years I’ve come to really appreciate the power of this plant. The crown has a deep taproot, which helps support it through drought. This root “mines” the subsoil for important, life-enhancing minerals. The mature hairy leaves protect it from most pests. It is a long-lived perennial, thus it provides increased food mass as it ages. More recently I’ve learned that the nutritional value of Turkish rocket is very high, and its crude protein content (22%) at flower bud stage is comparable to peanuts!

Both of these “broccolitas” are from wild lineages. What does that mean? From our experience, once established these plants are fairly pest and disease resistant (North American pests haven’t figured out how to get through the thick waxy leaves on the sea kale for example), and they seem well adapted to drought. A down side would be that they really haven’t been domesticated at all, so they do need some breeding work to produce bigger broccolis. But, because they are fairly low maintenance, it would behoove many more willing gardeners to tuck them into your perennial beds, and gain a little more fresh spring eating. Enjoy the broccolitas!


The sweet anise roots and foliage of sweet cicely

An unlikely favorite of ours are the large seeds of sweet cicily (Myrrhis odorata). When still green and unripe they taste exactly like black jellybeans. We all eat lots of them in spring, and they are real favorite among children who visit the garden. Jonathan and I had tried to start sweet cicily from seed when we lived at Wonder Bread farm, but had never gotten it to germinate from the seed packet. We finally bought some plants, and when they seeded for the first time here in Holyoke we threw fresh seed all over the garden hoping that a few might germinate. I’m pretty sure every single one did, creating a new weed problem for us. Now we deadhead what we don’t eat to help keep the species under control. A few years ago we learned a trick that made pulling sweet cicily much more delightful. It turns out that the roots (sometimes as large as carrots) are also anise flavored. They are a bit strong but wonderful when mixed with other root crops and a pleasant nibble fresh out of the ground.


Sylvetta, the perennial arugula

At this time Jonathan and I were both still single and we spent an inordinate amount of time in winter (and even summer after dark) reading up on useful plants. Many’s the time one of us would cry “dude!” and run over to learn the details of some strange crop on the Plants for a Future database or from a moldy old tome. I had profiled a perennial arugula called sylvetta (Diplotaxis muralis) in Perennial Vegetables. I had filed it away in my head as only hardy to zone seven and written it off as a candidate for our garden. But Jonathan insisted he wanted to try it, and I went along primly thinking to myself that it didn’t stand a chance. Much to my surprise, the plants resprouted vigorously the next spring. The woody parts of this shrub are not hardy, but the roots survived just fine, and these are the only part you eat anyway. So much for my award–winning expertise. Sylvetta has gone on to self-sow with abandon in our garden. We have recently corralled it under our grapes where it can do its thing without smothering anything more delicate. The strong arugula flavor of sylvetta is outstanding in omelettes but perhaps it is best chewed fresh in the garden with a few ripe alpine strawberries.


Groundcover of garlic chives

The perennial vegetable with the longest season in our garden is garlic chives (Allium tuberosum). This humble plant is viewed by most people in the U.S. as a minor crop at best, or even exclusively as an ornamental. But in China the blanched shoots and flower stalks are a commonplace crop. For Jonathan and I, the garlicy greens are wonderful in spring and fall, though we have many other perennial vegetables to choose from at that time. In late summer this crop comes into its own with twleve-inch stalks tipped by an edible flower bud. They can be thrown into whatever you might be cooking for lunch or dinner. I often see bunches of these flower stalks for sale at Asian markets, but I rarely meet a gardener who uses their garlic chives in this fashion. Once they open the flowers are also very lovely and quite attractive to honeybees. This is another case, like sweet cicily, where we could not get it to grow from seed packets but where fresh sown seed is a weedy disaster. We have now isolated our garlic chives in some areas that it can dominate (and be deadheaded), and have ruthlessly weeded it out of our other beds.

Eric Toensmeier

Eric Toensmeier is the award-winning author of Paradise Lot and Perennial Vegetables, and the co-author of Edible Forest Gardens. He is an appointed lecturer at Yale University, a Senior Biosequestration Fellow with Project Drawdown, and an international trainer. Eric presents in English, Spanish, and botanical Latin throughout the Americas and beyond. He has studied useful perennial plants and their roles in agroforestry systems for over two decades. Eric has owned a seed company, managed an urban farm that leased parcels to Hispanic and refugee growers, and provided planning and business trainings to farmers. He is the author of The Carbon Farming Solution: A Global Toolkit of Perennial Crops and Regenerative Agricultural Practices for Climate Change Mitigation and Food Security released in February 2016.

9 Comments

  1. After the long desolation of a Massachusetts winter, things start to move pretty quickly after the snow thaws. This is the season of perennial vegetables, and the time that their advantages over annual crops become very clear. In the time it takes to get annual crops ready to eat outside, we have already gone through three months of perennial vegetable harvest.

    Hmmm. we’ve been eating tomatoes, squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, garlic, barley, oats, basil, oregano, mint from our garden all winter long and we’ve still got ice and snow on the ground. And peaches, pears, apples, honeyberries, raspberries, blueberries, cherries. And juice – black currant, sweet cider, and honeyberry.

    No, we don’t have any season extenders. Being part of the oil complex, we think they’re a weak link in food production.

    But the Welsh onions have peeped a 1/4″ of green or that might be my optimistic hope working. It’ll be a while yet before we see asparagus, skirret, chokes or any other perennial veg. Damn but those perennial greens are so seasonal. We would have starved waiting for them. LOL

  2. Lovely and informative article. I grow garlic chives and really enjoy the flower buds, much like hard neck garlic scapes!

  3. Hi DGG, I assume you’re talking about stored and preserved foods. We do a fair amount of that ourselves too, as well as keeping a subtropical greenhouse going all winter for daily food, but there is something special about picking something fresh outdoors for dinner. I do disagree about season extenders as being part of the oil complex – there is no reason that greenhouse plastics can’t be made from plants, including perennials like acorns and the like. As for heat, our greenhouse is insulated but unheated. No, the role of perennial vegetables in the cold-climate food calendar is to fill a seasonal gap in fresh produce availability.

  4. Yes, stored and preserved annual vegetables. They’re a key part of cold-climate permaculture especially when grown in ways that maximize yield and improve the soil while minimally disturbing it. Thanks for the tip on sweet cicely. Each year I stubbornly have a go and germinating seed from packets. That is until last year when I spent twice as much on a couple of plants. Being first year perennials, they didn’t flower but they should this year and that hopefully will be problem solved on naturalizing them.

    there is no reason that greenhouse plastics can’t be made from plants

    Absolutely, if you can find a manufacture process that isn’t part of the carbon fuel complex. I know that people point to wind and solar but unless wind and solar alone can be used to extract/process/manufacture the materials that go into wind and solar then they are a non-starter at some point as the availability of the carbon fuel complex declines. By not using them, it’s forced us to think about how we might over-winter marginal perennials and/or have earlier growth on greens. So we plant against the south wall of the house and cover the plants in the fall with leaves and hay which we then cover with a wooden box to keep the meadow voles away. They can’t easily tunnel in since we buried two layers of cedar poles to create a 10″ barrier. The box stops the leaves/hay from being saturated with snow/water and freezing to a solid block that slowly melts in the spring. We’re able to easily expose the soil and foundation to the warming spring sun. That’s where the Welsh onions are showing. The Welsh onions elsewhere are still asleep under the ice and snow.

    When you say there is something special about picking something fresh outdoors for dinner, I think that is the key reason for growing these low yielding, impossible to store greens in a cold climate. They mark in a fundamental way the end of winter and the beginning of the season for fresh edible plants. I can hear the water from the snow melt running and I can see the returning robins but I can taste the Welsh onion. And when I do, I thank Ēostre.

  5. Hi DGG,
    I’ll have to respectfully disagree on “low-yielding and impossible to store”. They yield less than annuals in full sun and ideal soils, but much better in shady, wet, and/or dry soils. They also yield better per hour of labor input. So if you have a small space with full sun, build good soil and grow annuals. But grow these guys under your fruit trees and in the unproductive edges.
    Storage techniques, like any greens, include pickling, kimchee and sauerkraut, drying, and leaf protein concentrate. Or freezing, though you are not an electricity fan.
    As to bioplastic and energy, from an individual survivalist perspective there is not much to do, but my interest is in transforming civilization, with attendant opportunities to retrofit perennial biobased industry including plastic extruders, and of course clean energy. The folks at Open Source Ecology have designed, but not yet constructed, a DIY plastic extruder for biobased plastics.
    But we agree on the important thing – Welsh onions are most welcome!
    Eric

  6. Oh, I think we agree on quite a lot. We’re just exploring how we get to that agreement.

    Absolutely, annuals are Goldilock vegetables – they like water, sun and soil more or less just right while the perennial vegetables which generally have not had millennia of cultivation and selection are more tolerant of less Goldilock growing conditions.

    When I’m talking about yield, I’m talking about nutritional yield, ie, what’s in 100 grams of vegetable x. I looked at a couple of root crops vs arugula – https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1xMmQCpucG4MGZPLVZvZXJVUzg/edit?pli=1 and I’d take a 100 grams of potatoes or sweet potatoes over a 100 grams of arugula from a nutritional perspective. Having said that, I’d also want arugula on my plate to add some zest to the potato.

    I often hear the yield better per hour of labor input idea advanced supporting perennial vegetables over annual vegetables. It sounds so appealing but how do you measure that? Yes, there’s no planting in most cases and I’ll accept that the harvesting is more or less equal but there’s additional post harvest work of pickling, fermenting, or drying perennial vegetables except for the root perennials. Planting of annuals can be done in somewhat unconventional ways that greatly reduce the time and energy expended.

    The nutrition that I can produce from 1 square foot of carrots greatly exceeds what I can produce from 1 square foot of arugula. In 1 square foot, I get get 12-16 carrots or approx 1200-1660 grams of carrots. If I plant my arugula under my fruit trees and in the unproductive edges, then I’m expending energy and time going from one location to another to harvest.

    Absolutely, transform civilization but as with growing food, it seems prudent to hedge one’s bets. It’s generally acknowledged that many of our systems are fragile and susceptible to shock. At what price oil, does filling the gas tank on a rototiller start to hurt? At what level of slowing economies does the capital required for clean energy development dry up? Work on transforming civilization but look at how to handle the unexpected shocks. Figure out where the weak points in your food production system are and develop appropriate low tech solutions. If the NA drought summer of 2012 became more common, water harvesting would shift to water use reduction & retention.

    BTW, I don’t have anything personal against arugula. It just happened to be the perennial green that I chose. LOL As a second BTW, I’m not opposed to perennial vegetables but I think that annuals vegetables, in particular those that store easily, are critical to cold climate permaculture design. You need both annuals and perennials but you won’t starve if you have just annual vegetables. If you have just perennial vegetables……………………….. :(

  7. Thank you for the great information! Two years ago I purchased a cottage in cold climate New Brunswick, Canada with a 47×50 foot garden. One that I knew I could never keep plant filled and weeded as a cottage weekender. So that is when I found your book and embarked on my perennial vegetable and fruit project. Fill half with perennials and the rest with annuals. However, what I struggle with the most is finding the plants. Some perennial are really hard to find. Suggestions on where I can find:
    sprawling spinach shoots (Hablitzia tamnoides).
    Ramps (Allium tricoccum)
    Sea kale broccolis
    Turkish rocket broccolis
    Sylvetta
    Thanks in advance.
    Heather

  8. I’ve been working on compiling a survival plant database that’s comprised of mostly perennial vegetables. We’ve been doing it in Costa Rica for a couple years not and learning a lot. It’s crazy how productive you can be with such little input! These unique crops in addition to our aquaponics system has made the homestead really productive. I’ve posted my research so far at: https://survivalgardener.com

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