My Perennial Veg

Growing vegetables in  a London garden is not the easiest thing. The soil in mine is heavy clay and slugs and snails love it. The moment there is anything fresh, young and green they are out in force and have in the past  stripped every leaf in one night from potatoes I was trying to grow in a bag.

What's more, vegetables  need watering and feeding galore. I do have a mini Veg Trug on the patio in which I grow cut-and-come-again lettuces round the edges and carrots up the centre, where there is depth for their roots. But recently, the idea of growing perennial or perpetual vegetables in amongst the flower beds has begun to appeal. It's all to do with the less work, no digging, more variety, working-with-nature approach which is the general thinking in forest gardening, permaculture and  much organic gardening.

I think of perpetual vegetables as those which may seed themselves to produce new plants year after year and also those which are truly perennial and will die down in winter and rise again in spring. I already have several self seeders, mostly considered weeds but since they are perfectly edible and look pretty, I encourage them. I'm particularly keen on  Jack by the hedge (or garlic mustard) whose  leaves can be eaten like spinach.

                          Garlic mustard or jack by the hedge growing next to Spanish bluebells


But the ones that interest me most at present are the kinds of perennial vegetables that are basically wild varieties of the plump sleek plants we like to grow today. Like wild flowers, they tend to be  sinewy and tenacious, and once established can be expected to look after themselves.  I already have a number of such herbs including sweet cicely and lovage but I wanted to try actual vegetables.

Last year I tried two: something called Babbington's leek and a climbing spinach. I planted them in patches in amongst the flower borders, luckily I remembered to label them so I have been able to keep track of their fortunes. The leeks did well at first and I was pleased. Then they vanished in the summer and I thought I'd lost them, but they reappeared and are now growing well. In June, apparently I can either cut them down to ground level, eat the stems and allow the bulbs to grow and increase, or I can allow them to grow flowers, from which bulbils will form and scatter themselves around to self seed. I have five plants (I gave some to a friend) so I will try both methods and report on taste and practicality in a future blog.

                        Two Babbington's leeks growing amongst forget-me-nots and culinary sage

The other experiment, Hablitzia tamnoides - the climbing spinach -  grew well last year and satisfactorily climbed up a  small wire obelisk. Its leaves sprout off a main stem and I had plenty to contribute to salads but not enough to cook like spinach. The plant died down completely last winter but appeared again strongly in April with tightly formed rosettes of leaves in a bunch. I now have three plants in different parts of the garden.





















The photo above is my hablitzia in early spring this year growing next to a patio rose; the one on the right was taken on 1 May and is already happily climbing up the obelisk

One advantage of the leafy vegetables is that on the whole they don't seem to mind a bit of shade so I can grow them at the far end of the garden which is overshadowed by trees and shrubs and a lot of ivy.

This year I am trying a different variety of perpetual leek, Chinese artichokes (Stachys affinis), perpetual broccoli and eventually there are several types of perennial cabbage and root crops to look forward to as well. Work on these perennials is still largely experimental and they are not that easy to find. I got mine from Incredible Vegetables:  www.incrediblevegetables.co.uk who have an interesting list that includes root crops and whose information is concise, knowledgeable and helpful.