Perennials vs Annuals

David Trammel's picture

Personal gardens are going to be essential for your survival in the coming decades. Supply chain disruptions, unexpected natural disasters which affect crops, blights and illnesses, even economic problems of both societal and personal kinds are going to affect the amount of food you have access to. The difference between a disruption which is inconvenient and one that forces you to go hungry for a period of time, is going to be dependent on how well you prepare and what choices you make in what you plant.

While every gardener should learn and master the art of collecting and saving seeds, one way to build resilience is to plant perennial vegetables. Letting the plant itself self seed is a good way to insure you have a crop coming in the next year. It doesn't have to be your entire garden. Some of the most tasty and well loved vegetables for a home gardener are after all annuals, but a good percentage of perennials is helpful.

What perennials do you like and use?

"18 Perennial Veggies You Can Plant Once and Harvest For Years"

Personally I want to try Sunchokes (aka Jerusalem Artichokes) next year. As well as establish an Asparagus bed.

I don't know about sunchokes or maybe I got the wrong variety.
They need lots of sun. No shade. I've got a patch in the hedgerow where they essentially run wild.

The variety I planted does produce copious amounts of tubers but they were small and needed lots of scrubbing and peeling. It's not that easy to peel tubers the size of your thumb. Potatoes are easier because they're bigger.

Sunchokes to me are more of a semi-wild food. You plant them, keep an eye on them, harvest them if you feel up to the preparation job OR you're really hungry and have plenty of running water and time on your hands.

But again, mine might be a more ornamental variety and less of a food variety. I have no idea -- anymore -- what variety they are.

ClareBroommaker's picture

My mother grew these. In her small yard, she had to keep them dug to prevent them spreading across her more domesticated garden vegetables. Hers, too were small and nubby, but they tasted good to me. I don't think she peeled hers; not sure.

They might get tall enough to shade your other plants, so carefully choose a spot where they will shade something that wants shade--like your house.

Lettuce is one that self seeds readily. Tomatillo's are another veggie that once you plant one, you will have volunteers for ever. Same with ground cherries. I have heard from other gardeners that chard will go to seed in it's second year and the year following that, you will have volunteer chard seedlings. Celery could be one of the perennial's as well. It will produce a boat load of seed and that will spread liberally.

Sweet Tatorman's picture

I only have a couple true perennials which are asparagus and strawberries. I do have a few of what I call managed volunteers where I consciously till under annuals and biennials that have mature seed. In some cases I leave them where they grew, in others I cut and move the matured plant to the desired location for following year volunteers. My managed volunteers include dill, kale, mustard, and malabar spinach.

lathechuck's picture

... is that tree roots, not even very close by, will invade my vege beds and steal the water and nutrients. Every year or two, I need to dig deep into the beds to sever and remove them.

Thomas Jefferson is said to have recommended eating milkweed shoots, cooked like asparagus, but I've found conflicting reports as to whether or not this invasive native perennial is actually toxic. Eating it didn't seem to do me any harm at the time.

Thrifty1's picture

... that I'm growing most of the things on the list! One omission is horseradish, because it grows like a weed here, and I already have quite enough of those to contend with, over on my allotment, as I'm next to a field hedge & ditch & the weeds keep on coming through, over and under the fence. Our allotments are on the site of the ancient town, that was abandoned after the Bubonic Plague, so we're not allowed to grow anything woody bigger than currant bushes because of the archaeology underneath, which goes back to Roman times at least - in fact, Neolithic flint arrowheads have also been found there; it's right beside an ancient river crossing. However my Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes?) are evidently ok, despite being well over 6' tall now, because they are shallow-rooted. Luckily they produce reasonably fat, long, tasty tubers - there must be different varieties available.

Luckily our little garden is just big enough to grow fruit & nuts, as well as chickens; we have hazelnuts, quinces, cherry plums (native to the UK, and prolific here near the riverbank) 4 varieties of apple on dwarfing rootstock, figs, kiwis, blackberries, gooseberries, currants and a few lesser-known edibles such as fuchsia, silverberry & akebia. Left to itself, this would be forest edge; small trees & bushes on flattish land close to the riverbank, and those are indeed what grow best.

And nettles... this used to be a textile town, with 6 big mills running off our rivers; an important centre of the wool trade back in medieval times, then famous for producing "shalley" or challis, and in wartime, for producing military uniforms from nettle fibre. All long-forgotten now, though at least two of the mills could still be brought back into production if it were ever necessary, or put over to micro-generation of electricity. Nettles are the bane of my life at the allotment, always seeding themselves over the 60' hedge, but I do use them; dehydrating the fresh growing tips in spring & using them as a pot-herb throughout the year, gathering the seeds (highly nutritious) at this time, drying those too & adding them into anything where a few extra seeds won't be noticed. I've yet to actually gather the stems & use the fibre, but they are the tall variety needed for spinning or twining. Sadly though, the allotment "authorities" cannot see them as anything but a weed, so I can't be caught encouraging them, nutritious & useful or no!

You can't grow woody shrubs because it's a possible archeology site?
Is it because someone might need to dig up the ruins or do the authorities fear the ground is contaminated?

Eventually, your nettles and your old-style mills will come back. When people are worried about where their next meal is coming from, niceties go by the wayside.

You can't be dainty when you're starving.

Thrifty1's picture

It's because the tree roots would disturb the layers underneath; before it was abandoned in the Great Plague, the site had been more or less in continual occupation since the stone age, and there's the remains of a Roman military camp in the next field. We have to report any "finds" - i.e. anything man-made (or woman-made!) and hand them in to be examined & possibly put into the town's museum. The site is privately owned and if we don't comply with the owners' rules, we can be told to leave. By & large they leave us alone, though.

Now I get it. Bill and I watched a British tv show called The Detectorists all about these folks using their metal detectors.
There were scenes involving Roman ruins and *Not* wanting to find them because it would put a shopping center project in jeopardy. There were loads of similar incidents because you never knew what was lurking under your feet.

Thank you! I had completely forgotten. Around here in Hershey, at most you'll find a few arrowheads.