Perennial Vegetables Low-Maintenance, Low-Impact Vegetable Gardening Martin Crawford Contents Introduction
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How to grow Perennial Vegetables Low-maintenance, low-impact vegetable gardening Martin Crawford Contents Introduction Foreword by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall 8 We in Europe or North America are not very Why should this be? Perhaps it is partly Introduction 9 used to growing or eating many perennial because the soil is easily tilled between vegetables. There are a few that most annual crops to keep it weed-free. With Part 1 An introduction to perennial vegetables 13 people know – globe artichoke and rhubarb perennials, once they are established then probably being the most familiar – and mechanical or chemical weeding is not 14 1. Why grow perennial vegetables? some, like potatoes, are grown as replant usually quite so easy. What is a perennial vegetable? 15 perennials (see page 21). However, the way The case for growing perennials 15 agriculture has developed, into an almost Another factor is yield. Most short-lived entirely short-lived-plant-based and vegetables are either killed when they are 2. Growing perennial vegetables 19 mechanised method of growing vegetables first harvested or are exhausted at the end Types of perennial plant 20 and grains, means that perennials have of the growing season by regular harvesting. Soils 22 been somewhat left behind. They have short lives and have to grow fast. Perennial beds 22 Planting patterns 24 Perennial polycultures 26 Perennial grains 29 Perennial tuber and root crops 30 Perennial vegetables and ground-cover plants 30 Forest gardens 34 Growing perennial vegetables under existing trees 36 Growing aquatic perennial vegetables 37 Native and non-native plants 39 3. Maintenance of perennial vegetables 40 Feeding 41 Soil pH 49 Disease management 50 Pest management 50 Harvesting and yields 53 Propagation 54 Maintenance 61 Part 2 Perennial vegetables A–Z 65 Appendix: Common and Latin names 206 Resources 216 Index 219 Poke root – a North American wild edible than it is easy to grow. The cooked shoots are delicious. 5 Chapter 1 HoW To groW Perennial vegetables Chapter 1 • Why grow perennial vegetables? 15 from the previous autumn to replant the What is a perennial following spring. Why grow perennial vegetable? For the purposes of this book, a perennial vegetable is defined as a plant that lives for The case for growing vegetables? at least three years, and is raised for some perennials edible part of it – such as the leaves, shoots, leaf stems, roots or flowers. The edible part There are lots of reasons why growing might be used raw or cooked. The plant perennial vegetables makes sense. Most gardeners who want to grow some of their own food have a must also be capable of being harvested combination of annual vegetables and fruit bushes and/or trees, without killing the plant itself. You’ll also Less work but few have perennial vegetables (apart from, perhaps, find some well-known fruiting plants included rhubarb). This seems such a shame, because there are some in this book as a vegetable – strawberries, You don’t have to cultivate the soil every for example. These are included only if a year. Turning the soil over takes a lot of fantastic food plants out there with delicious flavours, which are part other than the fruit can also be eaten. energy, whether it is tractor energy in often very easy to grow. ploughing or human energy in digging. There is a distinction, rather blurry, between because perennials are planted only once a vegetable and a herb. A herb (in the (or once every few years) you do not have to culinary sense) is a plant with a strong disturb the soil so often. distinctive flavour, used as a flavouring in relatively small amounts. So in this book I If you stop turning the soil, and keep on top would not include, say, lovage as a perennial of the flush of weeds you’ll get from the vegetable, even though it is perennial, and initial soil preparation, then the weed seed is edible. However, I do include some plants bank in the top layer of the soil will not get that we often think of as herbs if they can be replenished with deeper dormant seeds. used in bulk amounts in salads or cooked You’ll find that the weeding required dishes – so you will find entries for some of decreases over time, especially if you mulch the mints, and for sweet cicely. around your perennials. In the context of this book, I am talking about because with most perennials you do not plants being perennials in the climatic dig them up every year, it is more important conditions found in the temperate and to weed out pestiferous perennial weeds continental climates of Europe and North when small. (When growing annual crops, America. Some annuals, of course, become the weeds can always be dug out in winter.) perennials if the climate is warm enough, and Nevertheless, even in the first year after these are not usually included unless, like planting, the weeding demanded should not runner beans, they can be grown as a replant be any greater than that for an annual crop. perennial (i.e. a plant that is perennial in a warm climate but in a cold climate can still be grown by lifting plant parts in autumn, storing Fewer carbon emissions them over winter and replanting in spring). A few years ago, nobody considered what carbon emissions were resulting from Also in this book are some replant perennials agriculture and horticulture, but that is such as potatoes and mashua, where it is changing rapidly. Growing food and other Oca is a crop widely grown in the Andes, with delicious lemon-flavoured tubers. common practice to save some of the tubers materials creates a lot of carbon in the 20 HoW To groW Perennial vegetables Chapter 2 • Growing perennial vegetables 21 just call ‘perennials’. Herbaceous perennials many ways, from bushy plants kept small by Types of Tuber, bulb and root vegetables – for example, asparagus – die down to harvesting to climbers covering walls, perennial plant underground roots, rhizomes or tubers in fences, trees, etc. Vegetable Crop type This book describes plants of the following the winter. Evergreen perennials – for Arrowheads Tubers (underwater) types. example, globe artichoke – retain some or all of their leaves over winter. Some Aquatic perennials babington’s leek bulbs perennials do not fit so neatly into these These are plants growing in water, usually Chinese artichoke Tubers Trees categories: for example, many mallows dying back to bulbs or rhizomes for the Egyptian onion bulbs A number of trees have edible parts that retain a rosette of green leaves over the winter. An example is American arrowhead may be used as a vegetable, one example winter in milder areas but may not do so in or duck potato, which forms tubers that are Elephant garlic bulbs being the snowbell tree. A tree like this, colder areas. From here on, herbaceous and eaten cooked in various ways. Garlic bulbs which is grown for the young fruits, is not evergreen perennials will be referred to as Groundnut Tubers usually coppiced (see ’Coppiced trees’, ‘non-woody perennials’. below, for these) as this would cut off the Replant perennials Jerusalem artichoke Tubers fruiting wood. These are plants that are perennial in warm Marsh mallow Roots Perennial bulbs climates and sometimes mild temperate Mashua Tubers The alliums are good examples of perennial climates, usually producing tubers or Shrubs bulbs, and there are several described in rhizomes, but are not hardy enough to Multiplier onions bulbs Likewise, a number of shrubs provide this book. The top growth of bulbous plants survive winters in colder temperate oca Tubers vegetables. one is the American elder, whose usually dies back for a part of the year – climates. I have included some of these in flowers can be fried as a fine vegetable. I though not necessarily winter. So, for the book, even though they are not truly Potato Tubers include bamboos – one of the finest of the example, babington’s leek dies back to a perennial in colder regions, because plants Prairie turnip Roots spring vegetables – in shrubs, even though bulb from late July to early September, like mashua and cinnamon vine or Chinese Rocambole bulbs they are strictly speaking perennial grasses. whereas ramsons dies back from late June yam can be grown in some milder temperate Scorzonera Roots to February. The bulbs that die back for part regions such as the south of England, and in of the summer usually prefer well-drained warmer microclimates. Potato is a replant Sea kale Roots Coppiced trees sunny sites and can be particularly useful perennial (though the ones that evade Silverweed Roots Trees that provide a leaf vegetable are often for a supply of leaves in winter. harvesting often survive the winter and coppiced to maintain them as more of a regrow), and runner beans can also be Skirret Roots compact bush and so make leaf harvesting grown in this way. Sweet cicely Roots easier and more practical. The branchwood Perennial ferns Sweet potato Tubers from coppicing may also be of use for Well, ‘fern’, actually – there is only one firewood or for growing mushrooms on. The mentioned in this book, ostrich fern, whose Perennial root and tuber Ulluco Tubers coppice cycle can be anything from one to young ‘fiddleheads’ are a well-known wild crops Water caltrop Tubers (underwater) five or more years, depending on the vigour edible in North America and Scandinavia. It is common for folk to say to me “It’s all Water chestnut Tubers (underwater) of the tree and the desired size. I coppice other ferns, for example, bracken, have very well having all these leafy vegetables, large-leaved lime annually, and small-leaved been eaten in the past but are now not but where are the substantial bulb and root Water lotus Rhizomes(underwater) lime every three to five years, and use the considered safe to eat.