Perennial vegetables are making a real come back in peoples backyards. In the last 100 years there has been a real shift to only growing and using annual vegetables.
The reason for this is two fold – one, as a nursery you only sell perennial plants once, whereas with annuals people come back every year for more so you make more profit. Two – we have lost the knowledge of what wild plants and weeds are edible.
A food forest garden is the perfect place to grow perennial vegetables and herbs so that you can plant them once and keep on harvesting the produce from them.
You can grab a PDF of NZ Perennial Vegetables here
Benefits of Perennial Vegetables in your Food Forest Garden
1) They are ready earlier in the season as they are already established. So while you are planting out tiny seedlings of our annual vegetables, your perennials are already big plants ready to go.
2) They can perform several roles in the garden at once – not just food. Many perennial vegetables are also beautiful, ornamental plants that can enhance your landscape. Others can function as hedges, groundcovers or erosion control for slopes.
In a food forest garden perennial vegetables and plants form the lower herbaceous layer.
Still other perennial veggies provide fertilizer to themselves and their neighbouring plants by fixing nitrogen in the soil. Some can provide habitat for beneficial insects and pollinators, while others can climb trellises and provide shade for other crops.
Perennials vegetables need to be carefully placed into a permanent place in your garden, and will have to be maintained separately from your annual crops.
List of Perennial Vegetables for your Food Forest Garden
Arugula
Asparagus
Asparagus Pea
Bamboo shoots
Black
salsify
Broadleaf Plantain
Bunching Onion Red
Bunching
Onion White Welsh
Burnet Saxifrage
Cardoon
Chicory
Chinese
Artichoke
Crosnes
Dame’s Rocket
Daylily
Elephant
Garlic
Egyptian Walking Onions
Fennel
Globe
Artichoke
Good King Henry
Jerusalem Artichoke
Kailaan
(Chinese Broccoli/Chinese Kale)
Multiplying Leeks
Lambs
Lettuce
Land Cress
Lemon Sorrel
Mashua/Anu
New
Zealand Spinach
Pikopiko- the hen and chicken fern
Perpetual
Spinach
Perennial broccoli
Rhubarb
Runner Bean
Salad
Burnet
Scurvy Grass
Sea Beet
Sea celery
Solomon’s
seals
Sweet Rocket
Stonecrop
Watercress
Wild
Strawberry
Yacon
Perennial Herbs for your Food Forest Garden
Some of these are technically annuals but they re-seed themselves very willingly. Some of these herbs are medicinal rather than everyday eaters, please check before throwing them in a salad!
Anise
Basil- Bush, Sacred, Sweet, Thai
Bergamot bee balm
Bergamot lemon
Borage
Burdock
Calendula
Caraway
Catnip
Chamomile
Chives
Garlic Chives
Clary Sage
Coriander
Cowslip
Cumin
Dandelion
Dill
Echinacea
Evening Primrose
Fennel
Fenugreek
Feverfew
Goldenrod
Horehound
Hyssop
Lady’s Mantle
Lavender English
Lemon Balm
Lemongrass
Liquorice
Lovage
Marjoram
Marshmallow
Mexican mint
Mullein
Oregano
Parsley
Parsley Italian
Peppermint
Plantain
Pyrethrum
Rosemary
Rue
Sage
Skullcap
Spearmint
St johns wort
Sweet Annie
Tansy
Thyme
Valerian
Vervain
White Sage
Wormwood
