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Most of what you grow in a garden, you must plant fresh every single year. You sow your tomatoes and your beans and your lettuce, you tend them all season, you harvest them, and then they are done, and come next spring you start the whole labor over again from bare ground and a packet of seed. But what if there were vegetables you plant just once, and then harvest year after year after year, for ten years, twenty, a lifetime, with hardly any work at all once they are established? There are, and they are called the perennial vegetables, and most folks have never grown a one of them.
I have grown a garden on this Lancaster County ground my whole life, the way my people always have, and the old people loved a perennial crop above almost any other, for it suited everything they believed in. You do the work once and reap for a generation. My grandfather's asparagus bed had been there longer than he had been alive, set by his own grandfather, feeding three generations who never planted it. A man who plants a thing like that is planting for people he will never meet, and there is no finer thin
Most of what you grow in a garden, you must plant fresh every single year. You sow your tomatoes and your beans and your lettuce, you tend them all season, you harvest them, and then they are done, and come next spring you start the whole labor over again from bare ground and a packet of seed. But what if there were vegetables you plant just once, and then harvest year after year after year, for ten years, twenty, a lifetime, with hardly any work at all once they are established? There are, and they are called the perennial vegetables, and most folks have never grown a one of them.
I have grown a garden on this Lancaster County ground my whole life, the way my people always have, and the old people loved a perennial crop above almost any other, for it suited everything they believed in. You do the work once and reap for a generation. My grandfather's asparagus bed had been there longer than he had been alive, set by his own grandfather, feeding three generations who never planted it. A man who plants a thing like that is planting for people he will never meet, and there is no finer thin
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00:00Most of what you grow in a garden you must plant fresh every single year.
00:05You sow your tomatoes and your beans and your lettuce, you tend them all season, you harvest
00:11them and then they are done, finished, and come next spring you start the whole labor
00:16over again from bare ground and a packet of seed.
00:20But what if I told you there are vegetables you plant just once and then harvest year
00:26after year after year, for ten years, twenty, a lifetime, with hardly any work at all once
00:34they are established?
00:35There are, and they are called the perennial vegetables, and most folks have never grown
00:41a one of them, and that is a shame, for they are among the most useful and rewarding things
00:47you can put in the ground.
00:49So today I am going to give you five must-grow perennial vegetables, the ones I would have
00:56every gardener plant, that you set in the ground once and that feed you for years to come.
01:03These are the plants that fill what the old gardeners called the hungry gap, that lean stretch
01:09in spring when the winter stores are gone and the new sown crops are not yet ready, for many
01:15of these come up early and faithful when little else is to be had.
01:20That hungry gap was a real and hard thing to the old people, that stretch of late winter
01:26and early spring when the root cellar was near empty, the stored cabbages and potatoes
01:32running low or sprouting, and the new garden not yet bearing a thing.
01:38It was the leanest time of the year, and a plant that came up early and faithful in that
01:44gap, the first asparagus spears, the perennial leeks and greens, was worth its weight in gold
01:51to a family scraping the bottom of the winter stores.
01:55We do not feel that gap so sharp now, with the stores full of food year-round, but a body
02:02who grows his own still knows that lean spring stretch, and these perennial crops fill it better
02:09than near anything.
02:10Plant once, harvest for years, that is the whole promise of them, and it is a fine one.
02:18I am Elias, and I have grown a garden on this Lancaster County ground my whole life, the way
02:23my people always have.
02:25And the old people loved a perennial crop above almost any other, for it suited everything
02:32they believed in.
02:33You do the work once, and reap for a generation.
02:37You grow more independent with every passing year, instead of starting over each spring.
02:44A perennial bed is a thing you hand down, an asparagus patch that feeds your grandchildren
02:51as it fed you.
02:53That is the old way of thinking, the long view, planting for the years and not just the season,
03:00and these five vegetables are that wisdom made green and growing.
03:06Let me tell you about my grandfather's asparagus bed, for it is the very heart of what I want
03:11you to understand.
03:13There was a bed of asparagus at the edge of the home garden that had been there longer
03:18than my grandfather had been alive.
03:20His own grandfather had dug it and set the crowns long before, and it had fed the family
03:27every single spring for the better part of a hundred years, three generations and more
03:33cutting fresh spears from it, none of them ever having planted it, all of them simply reaping
03:40where an old man long dead had sown.
03:43My grandfather used to stand by it of a spring morning and say, A man who plants a thing like
03:50this is planting for people he will never meet.
03:53And that stayed with me my whole life.
03:56When you set a perennial bed, you are not just feeding yourself this year.
04:01You are reaching forward through the years, maybe past your own life, to feed children
04:08and grandchildren you may never see.
04:11There is no finer or more hopeful thing a person can do with a patch of ground than that,
04:17and it is the whole spirit behind every one of these five plants.
04:22So as I show them to you, think not just of your own table this year, but of the long
04:28years and the hands that will reap after yours.
04:32The first is the globe artichoke, and it is a grand place to start.
04:37For it is not only good to eat, but a magnificent great plant to look upon, tall and bold and
04:44silvery, a thing of beauty in the garden as much as a thing for the table.
04:50It wants full sun and a well-drained soil, and room, for it grows into a real whopper,
04:57so give each plant about three feet all around.
05:01You can start it from seed, but you do far better to begin with young plants and get
05:07a head start.
05:08In its first year, it wants a little care, keeping the weeds down and watering well, especially
05:15through the summer dry, while it gets itself established.
05:19After that, it is hardy and easy.
05:23Come spring, you mulch around it to feed all that eager growth and hold the weeds.
05:29And in a hard winter country like ours, when it dies back in the fall, you do well to cover
05:36the crown with a little straw or compost to carry it safe through the worst cold.
05:42What you eat of the artichoke is the flower bud, harvested while it is still tight and closed,
05:49about the size of a golf ball, and well before it opens.
05:53You steam or boil the buds till tender, and then, and this is the pleasure of it, you pull
06:00off the scales one by one, and dip each in a little melted butter or sauce, and draw it
06:07through your teeth to strip off the tender flesh at its base.
06:11And when you have eaten down through all the scales, you come at last to the heart, the
06:18tender prize at the center, the real reward of the whole business.
06:23Esther steams them, and we sit and work through them together of an evening, scale by scale,
06:30down to the heart, and it is as much a pleasure in the slow doing of it as in the
06:35eating, a fine,
06:36unhurried supper for two.
06:39And here is a kindness.
06:41You will often get a second crop of smaller buds after the first cutting.
06:47But do let a few of those buds go on and open into their flower, for the artichoke in bloom
06:54is the most bee-loved flower I have ever seen, a great purple thistle head fairly humming
07:01with them, and it does the heart good to watch them work it.
07:05I will mention here a near-cousin of the artichoke, the cardoon, which wants the very same sunny,
07:13well-drained ground, only with the cardoon it is not the buds, but the stalks you eat, which
07:20look much like celery and are used much the same, baked or in soups.
07:26Quick word before I go further.
07:29The old methods my family uses, there is more of it than fits in any one video.
07:34I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
07:40The book is the long version.
07:42If you want it, it is there.
07:44I will not mention it again.
07:47The second is a perennial onion, and there are several fine kinds, but the one I will
07:53point you to is the perennial leek, sometimes called by the name of an English place the
08:00babington leek, which carries a fine, garlicky leek flavor.
08:04You plant the little bulbs, the bulblets, about an inch deep, either straight into prepared
08:11ground, or, as I prefer for keeping an eye on them through their first tender season,
08:17into pots to set out in the spring.
08:21Set them about six inches apart, and they will form a nice clump.
08:25Now, here is the rule with these.
08:28Leave them be the first year after planting.
08:31Do not harvest.
08:33Let them bulk up and establish.
08:36Then, from the second spring on, you cut the stems for the kitchen, cutting at the ground
08:42so the bulb beneath lives on and keeps growing.
08:46And here is the wonder of them.
08:48In early summer, they throw up a flower stalk topped with a cluster of tiny bulbils, little
08:56baby bulbs, and these drop to the ground or weigh the stalk down to touch the soil.
09:02And there they root and grow, spreading and increasing your patch of leeks all on their
09:08own, free, year after year.
09:12There are other fine perennial onions in this family.
09:16The Welsh onion, a perennial bunching onion, and the curious walking onion, which sets little
09:23bulbs atop its stalk that flop over, root where they land, and so the plant walks itself
09:30slowly across your garden a few inches a year.
09:34A man could feed himself onions forever off such plants, and never buy a set again.
09:41The third is perennial kale, and I am very fond of this one, for it gives you fresh greens
09:47near the whole year round.
09:48In the lean, cold months when little else is green, any time you want a mess of greens,
09:54you step out and cut some.
09:56It is exceedingly hardy and tough.
09:58It shrugs off the cold and shrugs off the caterpillars that would ruin ordinary kale.
10:03And it can grow near to the height of a man if you let it, though you keep it to
10:08a sensible
10:08height simply by harvesting it regular.
10:12Now here is a thing about perennial kale.
10:15Most kinds do not give you seed.
10:17So you grow it not from seed, but from cuttings.
10:21A chunky cutting of a side shoot about 10 inches long, trimmed just below a leaf node with the
10:27lower leaves stripped off to keep it from drying out.
10:31You set that cutting in a pot of moist soil, keep it moist and bright, and it roots, and
10:37come spring you plant it out, and there is your kale, and from it you can take more cuttings
10:43to make more plants, free, forever.
10:46There are several good old kinds to look for, hardy ones bred in cold hard country, and one
10:53fine kind for the warmer climates besides.
10:56So there is a perennial kale for near any garden.
11:00And there is a great comfort in it, for in the deep of a cold winter, when the garden is
11:05bare and brown, and Esther wants greens for the pot, that perennial kale stands there green
11:11and ready in the snow, and a man can go cut an armful of fresh greens when there is not
11:17another green leaf to be had in all the garden.
11:21Esther cooks it down with a bit of bacon and onion, and it is a fine thing on a winter
11:27plate when fresh greens are otherwise only a memory.
11:31A plant that feeds you green and fresh through the dead of winter is a treasure, and most folks
11:38have never heard of it.
11:40The fourth is a root crop, and a fine surprising one, the Jerusalem artichoke, also called the
11:47sun choke.
11:48Now do not be fooled by the name.
11:51It is no artichoke, and comes from no Jerusalem.
11:54It is a kind of sunflower, a tall, handsome plant with a cheerful yellow flower.
12:00And what you eat is the knobbly tuber it makes underground, which you cook just like a potato,
12:07boiled or baked or fried, with a sweet, nutty flavor.
12:11And here is its great virtue.
12:13It is as easy to grow as a potato, but troubled by almost none of the pests and diseases that
12:20plague the potato.
12:22You plant the tubers in spring, a few inches deep and about a foot apart, water and grow
12:27them on through the summer, and dig them in the fall after the tops die back, using them
12:33like potatoes and keeping a few back to replant.
12:37But now I must be honest with you about this one, as I always am, for it has two faults
12:42you
12:43should know before you plant it.
12:45The first is that it spreads, and spreads and spreads, for any little bit of tuber left
12:51in the ground grows again, so it can take over a corner of your garden and be near impossible
12:57to be rid of.
12:58So plant it where it can run without troubling your other crops, off in a corner of its own.
13:05The second, and I will be plain, is that these tubers disagree with some folks' digestion
13:11something fierce, giving a powerful wind.
13:14So when you first try them, try only a little, and see how they sit with you before you make
13:20a meal of them.
13:22Forewarned is forearmed.
13:24Mind those two faults, and the sun choke is a wonderful thing, for it is near impossible
13:30to kill.
13:31It bears heavy.
13:32The tall sunflowers are a cheer to look at, and good for the bees, and you can leave the
13:38tubers right in the ground through the winter and dig them fresh as you want them, the cold
13:43cellar of the earth itself keeping them for you.
13:47For a body who wants a sure, easy, heavy crop of something potato-like with almost no trouble,
13:54and who has a corner to spare for its spreading, it is hard to beat.
13:59The fifth, and I have saved the best for last, is the king of the perennial vegetables, asparagus.
14:06There is nothing finer than your own fresh-cut asparagus in the spring, and the asparagus
14:11bed, once made, will feed you faithfully for 15, 20 years and more, so it is well worth
14:19the patience it asks, and it does ask patience, more than any other plant here.
14:24You make a bed from dormant roots, called crowns, bought in early spring, and you plant them
14:30fresh and right away.
14:32You give over a whole patch of ground just to the asparagus, a permanent home, for once
14:38planted, you will not want to disturb them, ever.
14:42You prepare that ground well, weeding it and digging in plenty of well-rotted manure or
14:48compost, for this bed must last decades, and you feed it well at the start.
14:53You dig a trench about a foot wide and 8 inches deep, make a little ridge down the middle, and
15:00drape the roots of each crown over that ridge like a saddle, spacing the crowns about 18 inches
15:06apart, and your trenches 18 inches apart as well.
15:10Then you backfill and water to settle them, and mulch with more compost to feed them and
15:16hold the weeds.
15:17And now comes the hard part, the patience.
15:20You must not cut a single spear for the first two years, hard as it is to resist, for the
15:28young plant needs those two years to build its strength below ground, and a bed harvested
15:34too soon is a bed ruined and weakened for life.
15:39Wait!
15:40Let it grow up into its tall, ferny foliage and feed its roots.
15:44Then, from the third spring on, your reward begins, and you cut the fresh spears as they
15:51push up for a good six to eight weeks each spring, until about mid-summer, when you stop
15:57and let the rest grow up into that ferny green again to recharge the crown for next year.
16:04Do that, cut your weeks, and then let it fern, and that bed will feed you every spring for
16:11twenty years and more.
16:13Watch for the asparagus beetle, which notches the spears and chews the foliage, and deal
16:19with it simply by picking or knocking the beetles off into a little soapy water, and tidy away
16:25the old dead foliage at season's end.
16:28And beyond that, asparagus is near trouble-free.
16:32Two years of patience for twenty years of spring asparagus.
16:37That is the old bargain, and it is a good one.
16:40And think what that asparagus would cost you bought fresh at the market, dear as it is,
16:46every spring for twenty years, against the one-time cost of a few crowns and a little digging.
16:53There is hardly a better return on a little work and a little patience anywhere in all of
16:59gardening.
17:01The hasty gardener cannot abide the two years' wait, and so never plants it, and goes on
17:07buying dear asparagus forever.
17:09The patient one waits the two years once and eats free for twenty.
17:15That is the whole difference between thinking in seasons and thinking in decades, and it
17:21is the old people's wisdom in a single bed.
17:25Now, those are my five, but I will tell you there are many more perennial vegetables to
17:30explore beyond these, and some of them you may already have growing as flowers without
17:36knowing they are good to eat.
17:38The tender young leaves of the hosta, for one, or the flower buds of the daylily.
17:45But here I must give you a firm word of caution.
17:48Do not go eating any plant from your garden until you have made certain sure it is safe
17:54and rightly identified.
17:57For some plants are harmful, and some look like others that are, so do your research and
18:03be certain before ever you put a wild or ornamental plant in your mouth.
18:09Be adventurous, but be safe first.
18:12Now, let me say the small, honest word about the deeper sense in all this.
18:18Who gains and who loses by the way we garden now?
18:23Not to rile you up, just so you see the shape of it.
18:27The whole trade of gardening now is built around the yearly plant.
18:32The seeds and the sets and the started plants you must buy fresh every single spring, season
18:39after season, forever.
18:41And there is a steady business in that, in your starting over from nothing every year
18:47and buying anew.
18:49The perennial vegetable breaks that cycle, for you buy it once and it feeds you for 20 years
18:55and even makes you free new plants besides.
18:59I am not telling you a man schemed this.
19:02No one had to.
19:03It is worse than a conspiracy, because it is a system nobody had to coordinate.
19:08It simply pays better to sell a body new plants every spring than to set him up with a bed
19:15that feeds him for 20 years and asks nothing more.
19:19The old people planted perennial beds and asparagus patches precisely because they thought in decades
19:26and generations, not seasons.
19:28And a plant that fed the family year on year for free was worth more to them than any yearly
19:35crop.
19:35So there are your five must-grow perennial vegetables.
19:40The globe artichoke, grand and beautiful, for its tender flower buds.
19:45The perennial leek and its onion cousins, that spread themselves and feed you forever.
19:51The perennial kale, for fresh greens near the whole year round.
19:55The Jerusalem artichoke, easy as potatoes, if you mind its spreading and its wind.
20:02And the asparagus, the king of them all, two years of patience for 20 years of spring.
20:09Plant these and you do the work once and harvest for a lifetime, which is the old way and the
20:16wise way and the way that makes a garden a thing you hand down rather than a thing you must
20:22build anew each spring.
20:24Now I want to hear from you.
20:26And I ask honest, because I learned the whole country from these comments.
20:31Tell me in the comments below, which perennial vegetables do you already grow, and which
20:37of these five will you try?
20:38Why?
20:38For I would love to know how they do in the different corners of the country.
20:43And tell me your county and your climate, because what overwinters in one place will
20:48not in another, and I like to map it by where you all write from.
20:52I read every one.
20:55Next time, I want to go on to the other old perennial food plants.
20:59The herbs and the berries that you plant once and harvest from for years and years.
21:05The perennial herbs that come back faithful every spring, and the berry bushes and canes
21:11that bear for a generation.
21:13For there is a whole world of plant once, eat for years food beyond the vegetables, and
21:19the old homesteads were full of it.
21:22A garden planted for the years, and not just the season, is a garden that grows richer and
21:27easier with time instead of poorer and harder.
21:31And that is the truest kind of gardening there is.
21:34The old people planted asparagus beds and berry patches they knew they might not live to see
21:40in full bearing, planting them for the children and grandchildren who would come after.
21:45And there is no finer thing a person can do with a patch of ground.
21:50The garden that feeds not just the gardener, but his grandchildren, is the garden that remembers
21:55what planting is truly for.
21:57The people who built this country with their hands knew that, and we are only just starting
22:03to remember it.
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