PERENNIAL VEGETABLES
There are many benefits to growing perennial vegetables. Once they have established themselves, most of them require little care, they are less susceptible to drought, you do not need to buy seeds or plants every year, which saves you both time and money when purchasing them and throughout the season. A proper win-win-situation.
I live in hardiness zone H5/H6 in Innlandet (that's H7 in the british rating and around 3-4 in the US with continental climate ). Here it gets pretty cold in the winter and it is often quite dry in the summer. Also, the sun hides behind the mountain for 5 months. A combination that leads to a number of challenges in the vegetable garden. Most annual vegetables have a short growing season and need a good deal of care, such as protection against night frost (which can theoretically apear the whole year) and a lot of watering - covering the soil is a good solution to keep moisture in the soil and to maintain a more even temperature. Another solution is to grow perennial vegetables.
In nature, we can observe that the first plants to appear again in the spring are perennials such as coltsfoot, hepatica, willow and hazel (hazel blossom in the photo). They profit of the energy (in the form of different types of carbohydrates) that they have generated the previous year and stored in the roots. They do not have to wait for the sun to be strong enough and get an early start in the season, which can, among other things, be an advantage in out-competing other plants in the fight for the most resources such as light and nutrition. The roots often also reach deep into the soil and can retrieve water and minerals from the depths and are therefor more independent from what happens on the surface.
For you as a grower, this means that you both get a longer season, less work and a crop that is less sensitive to weather influences when you integrate perennial vegetables into your kitchen garden - doesn't that sound fantastic?
Here is a list of some of the ones I find most interesting and useful for my climate sone. Eventually I will write about some of them and link them here.
I'm already growing these ones
- Rhubarb Rheum rhabarbarum
- Hablitzia Hablitzia tamnoides
- Jerusalem artichok Helianthus tuberosus
- Allium genus e.g.
- Tree onion Allium x proliferum
- Sibirian chives Allium nutans
- Horseradish Armoracia rusticana
- Scorzonera Scorzonera hispanica
- Skirret Sium sisarum
I really want to try theese ones
- Sibirian pea-tree Caragana arborescens
- Hosta Hosta sp.
- Chinese artichoke Stachys affinis
- Daylily Hemerocallis
- Greater burdock Arctium lappa
wild perennial vegetables
There are of course many more wild vegetables, I have limited this list to a few examples of the most common and applicable ones.
- Stinging nettle Urtica diocia
- Fireweed Chamerion angustifolium
- Chicory Cichorium intybus
- Dandelion Taraxacum officinale
- Mountain and common sorrel, northern dock Oxyria digyna, Rumex acetosa & Rumex longifolius
- Angelica Angelica archangelica
- Ground elder Aegopodium podagraria
There are many other useful and exciting perennial plants such as berry bushes, fruit and nut trees and herbs. I plan to write about those that are hardy enough to be grown in hardiness zone H5 and up as well. I have also written about plants that are not perennial but self-sow (read herewhich also saves both time and money
Feel free to write a comment if you have questions or want to share your own experiences.
Happy Goating!
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