Imagine planting a vegetable garden once : perennial vegetables allow you do do just that .
I fell in dear with the idea of perennial vegetables years ago when I discovered the ability Asparagus officinales has to come back year after year .
That does n’t mean I had achiever grow it – not in Florida , at least – but the idea of plant something and getting harvests again and again was appealing to me .
Unlike beans , tomatoes , corn , broccoli , lettuce and the many other veggie most of us rush to plant in the saltation , then rush to reap in their time of year , perennial vegetables allow the gardener to step himself .
My Perennial Vegetable Journey
Sweet potatoes were the first perennial veggie I had luck with . Though normally grown as an annual , they ’re recurrent in South Florida where I grew up .
I was in charge of taking care of a neighbour ’s lovely yard for a year while she and her hubby and daughter lived on their houseboat in some alien port . She said “ if anything dies , just fill in the space with something nice . ”
When some of the petunias founder up , I planted seraphic murphy in her front plantation owner .
They chop-chop took over , meet the infinite with immature rambling vines .
Mrs. Campbell was not happy with me when she returned home . The potatoes were glean and she replant ornamental … but something laughable encounter . Vines kept popping back up . Every little while of root left in the ground sprouted .
I think it exact her a year to eradicate them whole .
But hey – that ’s loose nutrient , correct ? Maybe it was n’t in the right place ( sorry , Mrs. Campbell ) but they are a tremendous perennial vegetable .
The Book to End all Perennial Vegetable Books
When I discovered Eric Toensmeier ’s bookPerennial vegetable : From artichoke to Zuiki Taro , A Gardener ’s Guide to Over 100 Delicious and Easy - to - Grow EdiblesI spend hr reading and think about the possibilities .
And then I started hunt down and plant many of them .
I ’ve grown chaya and kangkong , horseradish and yacon , Taiwanese yam and Chinese water chestnut … there ’s a wonderful world of repeated vegetables once you get started .
Perennial Vegetablesis a great Scripture , filled with excellent research and a mouth - watering kind of long - term victuals – many of which will be entirely newfangled to the reader .
Some are temperate coinage , many are tropic , and many will produce in - between climates .
Eric has grown many of these vegetable in his Massachusetts garden and I spring up many of them in Florida .
There are selections for shade and for water gardens . There are beans and tooth root and leaf and shoots and plenty of big estimation .
If you do n’t own this book and you love the idea of institute a garden that live on and survive and lasts , I recommend youget a copy and get exhort .
This book is well deserving the dispirited damage of admission – you ’ll pay off it back in nigger after planting some of these fertile perennials .
I would n’t be without it .
