Perennial Greens Plant List

By Mary Zemach French sorrel Large spinach-like leaves. Has a tart lemony flavor. Also great in sandwiches. By March the leaves are up for picking. Cut off the flowering stalks. When you have an excess, make French sorrel soup, or pesto, using sorrel in place of basil. (If you freeze it to use in winter, add the ground nuts and Parmesan cheese after thawing.) Blood-veined sorrel Lance-shaped leaves, up in April. Seeds from Nichols Garden Nursery. Handsome; no one will recognize it as an edible.

Lovage This is a perennial celery, grows 3 to 5 feet tall, in sun or shade. The new leaves are up in March, and are nice added to a salad, though too strong flavored to be the only green you use. Older leaves all season are great in soups and casseroles. Makes a splendid cream-of-celery soup. Dry some leaves for winter seasoning. Be sure to save the seeds--celery seeds! to use as a seasoning. The stems are hollow, and make great drinking straws, or pea shooters for children. Grows into a large clump after a few years, so one is all you need. However, I spot them around the yard, as the flowers attract beneficial insects. Salad burnet Grows 8 to 10 inches high. A beautiful lacy looking plant with tiny leaflets along the stem. Mild cucumber flavor. In mild winters you can pick a few sprigs throughout the winter. A short-lived perennial--usually about 8 years, so let it go to seed occasionally for more volunteers. Up mid to late March. Does well in partial shade. Sweet cicely You'll think it is a fern until the white flowers appear. Grows 2 to 3 feet tall, depending on moisture. Very mild licorice flavor; the leaves are tender all season long. Grind the large seeds in a mortar and pestle to flavor salad dressings. Germination rate is low, but when established, it will reseed itself. Likes partial to full shade and moderate moisture. "It is so harmless you cannot use it amiss," say the old herbals. The entire plant is edible--people used to candy the stems and roots. Up in April in Los Alamos. Fennel Both green and bronze varieties. The leaves look like dill- - they are related. Chop them in salad; a licorice flavor. Up late March to early April. Does well in partial shade. Violets The young leaves are nice in salads; high in vitamin C. The flowers are also edible, and are lovely sprinkled on a salad. Dandelion You probably already have it, and should be using it, as it is more nutritious than anything you can buy. Use the earliest leaves in spring, raw or cooked. When the leaves get tough and bitter, twist off the rosette, and new tender leaves will grow out. Start by adding one finely chopped leaf to a salad, if you think you won't like it. Egyptian onion Probably the most useful vegetable I grow, producing more food per square foot than anything else. It is a scallion type onion, and never forms a large bulb. Mine are up in February, and last well into October, or even November. Cut them half an inch above the roots, and they will grow out again. They don't flower, but put up a flowering stalk that produces a cluster of small bulblets, which can be planted to increase your supply. I plant them around fruit trees to repel insects. Put a few near the house to come up earlier than those out in the yard. I use them cooked and raw as a substitute for regular onions for 8 months of the year, ignoring the color, for the flavor is certainly there. Then, for a treat, I buy bulb onions in the winter.

Chives Up late March or early April. Delicate onion flavor. The purple flowers are decorative and tasty in salads, and will color an herb vinegar. Garlic chives Up early April. Taller and more robust than regular chives, with narrow strap-like leaves that have a distinct garlic flavor. The flowers are white, about 14 to 18 inches tall, and are nice in salads. When the petals fall, the young green seeds, which have a nice garlicky bite, are nice in salads or mixed with cream cheese. Pink nodding onion Sold as a wildflower, which indeed it is. I don't bother eating the leaves, having so many garlic chives, but the pink flowers are decorative and delicious in salads, and just gorgeous mixed with cream cheese to spread on crackers. Blooms after chives, and before garlic chives. Garlic I always leave some unharvested to go to flower the next spring. The young tender flower stalks and buds (in May) are good either cooked or raw. Sometimes sold at Farmers Markets.

WINTER-OVER BIENNIALS FOR EARLY GREENS.

Swiss chard The new leaves are good raw in salads, or cooked as greens, until the plant goes to seed. They come in a rainbow assortment of stem colors. Place them near the south side of the house, and they will live through the winter. Elsewhere, mulch them heavily and hope for the best. All members of the cabbage family--cabbage, kale, ornamental kale, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts. Use the new leaves. When they start to flower, the buds, which resemble miniature broccolis, are good raw in salads, or cooked in stir fry. If you don't eat all of the yellow flowers in May, let a few go to seed and save the seeds for sprouting in the winter. Beets Similar to Swiss chard, to which they are related. Parsley, both plain and curly leaf varieties. It will reseed. The new leaves on the wintered over plants give plenty of parsley until the new seedlings are large enough to eat.

RESEEDING ANNUALS.
Lettuce, endive, and arugula will reseed themselves, if you let them. Lamb's quarters. A common weed in everyone's garden, sometimes sold at Farmers Markets as Mexican spinach. Mild flavor, much like spinach, to which it is related. Dry and powder some to use in winter soups. Red orach. Larger than lamb's quarters, but related. Great color to the leaves and stems for salads. When cooked, the leaves turn green, but the stems remain red. Reseeds enthusiastically, but the extras pull out easily. Purslane, or portulaca. Comes up late for me--June, July, and later. Use cooked or raw. Called verdolagas in Spanish.

EDIBLE FLOWERS.
It is very chic these days to use edible flowers in salads, and many will be ready long before you can expect any color from tomatoes. The more expensive the restaurant, the more flowers you get. You can outdo them all at home. Many books list edible flowers, but here are a few.

Violets, pansies, violas, and Johnny-jump-ups, calendulas, marigold, dianthus, pinks, carnations, nasturtium, fireweed, rose, borage, lavender, rosemary, sage, pea, string bean, and runner bean flowers. Also, dandelion-clip the petals over a salad. Put whole washed flowers in biscuits or fritters--they seem to nearly disappear in the baking. Great in corn fritters. Day lily (chop the petals for salad; cook the unopened buds in stir fry. Don't use regular lilies or sweet peas, which are poisonous), CAUTION: Be sure you know what you are picking, for many lovely flowers are poisonous.

www.permaculture.org Mary Zemach, 740 Canyon Road, Los Alamos, NM 87544