Perennial Vegetables

From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, a Vegetable Gardener's Guide to Over 100 Delicious, Easy-to-Grow Edibles

"Growing perennial vegetables is a true pleasure. This fine book gives the knowledge to successfully add variety to both the garden and the table while also enhancing the home environment."

—Miranda Smith, author of The Plant Propagator's Bible and Complete Home Gardening

There is a fantastic array of heirloom vegetables you can grow in your garden, and not all of them are annuals. In Perennial Vegetables the adventurous heirloom gardener will find information, tips, and sound advice on less common edibles that will make any vegetable garden a perpetual, low maintenance source of food.

Imagine growing heirloom vegetables that require just about the same amount of care as the flowers in your perennial beds and borders--no annual tilling and planting. They thrive and produce abundant and nutritious crops throughout the season. It sounds too good to be true, but in Perennial Vegetables author and plant specialist Eric Toensmeier (Edible Forest Gardens) introduces vegetable gardeners to a world of little-known and wholly underappreciated plants. Ranging beyond the usual suspects (asparagus, rhubarb, and artichoke) to include such "minor" crops as ground cherry and ramps (both have found their way onto exclusive restaurant menus) and the much sought-after, antioxidant-rich wolfberry (also known as goji berries), Toensmeier explains how to raise, tend, harvest, and cook with plants that yield great crops and satisfaction.

Perennial vegetables are perfect as part of an edible landscape plan or permaculture garden. Profiling more than a hundred species, with dozens of color photographs and illustrations, and filled with valuable growing tips, recipes, and resources, Perennial Vegetables is a groundbreaking and ground-healing gardening book that will open the eyes of vegetable gardeners everywhere to the exciting world of edible perennials.

About the Author

Eric Toensmeier calls himself a "socially engaged plant geek." He has spent much of his adult life exploring edible and otherwise useful plants and how they can be used in designed ecosystems. He is also co-author with Dave Jacke of the two-volume permaculture design manual Edible Forest Gardens. Eric has worked as a small farm trainer at the New England Small Farm Institute (Belchertown, MA) and currently manages the Tierra de Oportunidades new farmer program of Nuestras Raices in Holyoke, MA. There he is designing and installing a permaculture landscape in concert with immigrant farmers.