Perennial Fruits and Vegetables

My goal for the garden is to have it be as productive and maintenance free as possible. One way to do this is to plant as many perennial varieties as I can, so that I’m not having to start a ton of seeds each year.

Perennial Fruits

• Blueberry—bush, shade tolerant. Likes acidic soil.
• Blackberry—
• Chokeberry—deciduous bush (will drop its leaves in the winter). Prefers full sun, will tolerate part shade. Berries are best when cooked.
• Currant—
• Fig—tree. known as easy fruits to grow and will also work in containers for colder climates. They can grow into 8 meter trees or be pruned to operate more like fruit-producing bushes. Despite being an easy tree to grow, they do require four or five years to really start bearing fruit.
• Goji—bush. good container plants if you can’t get them into the ground. Zones 3 through 10, drought tolerant, and tolerant to shade. They might give a little fruit in the first year, but they will provide in the second.
• Gooseberries—bush that prefers part shade.
• Grapes—great plants for giving shade in the summer and letting sun in throughout the winter. They can provide viable fruit harvests in about three years, but they require annual pruning to produce well—on new growth—each year.
• Honeyberry (Haskap)—early spring fruits from the same family as honey suckle. The berry is compared to everything from a blueberry to a kiwi. They are easily rooted from dormant cuttings and produce fruit in the first two or three years. These plants are best suited to Zone 2 through 4 but can be lovingly cultivated all the way to Zone 9. Extremely cold tolerant (like to -48º).
• Lemon / Lime—trees
• Mulberry—tree
• Paw Paw—understory tree. Likes part shade.
• Raspberries—readily multiply once they take to a location. They will start bearing fruit in their second season. Will need to be pruned back each year to get good production from them. They—like many berries—can be trellised to make great productive garden borders which work as fences, wildlife habitat, and a perennial food source.
• Serviceberry—understory tree that tolerates part shade.
• Strawberries—grow well on hugelkultur beds and will happily spread out when left to their own devices. Pull the buds off in year one plants to get a better harvest in the second year.

Also, any fruit trees.

Perennial Vegetables

• Artichoke—
• Asparagus—
• Egyptian Walking Onions—
• Jerusalem Artichoke (sunchoke)—full sun. In the sunflower family. Tubers are full of fiber and when cooked, similar to mashed potatoes.
• Kale—actually a biennial in zones 8-10 (comes back every other year). For a hardier, perennial version, try Sea Kale.
• Lovage—an early producer that grows in sun or shade. Can use as a lettuce or a replacement for celery when flavoring soups or dishes.
• Radicchio—
• Rhubarb—
• Sorrel—leaves have a pleasantly lemony flavor. use in salads.
• Watercress—
• Wild Leeks (Ramps)—they only sprout for approximately a month during the spring. You can pick enough during this time (usually) to enjoy them raw or to pickle them for later use.

Perennial Herbs

• Chives
• French Tarragon
• Mint
• Oregano
• Rosemary
• Sage
• Thyme
• Winter Savory