04/18/2026
Cultivating Herbs and Perennials in your Gardens *(from my book)
🌿DO YOU HAVE ANY PASS-ALONG PERENNIALS? If you do, you know that they’re often the most meaningful plants in the garden—welcome reminders of family and friends, living connections to people we still love. I cannot eat homegrown rhubarb, chives, or asparagus without recalling the joy my grandfather would express whenever he sat down to savor a perennial vegetable from his own garden.
A wonderful heirloom gardening practice is the cultivation of perennial food crops. In this age of local farmers markets, we have all grown to appreciate that the fewer miles our food travels, the better it is for our environment and our health. While many annual food crops can be direct sown, most are forced in less-sustainable greenhouses, with all their attendant chemical fertilizers and plastic pots, followed up by fuel oil and shipping. I am grateful for local greenhouses when it comes to getting a head start on tomatoes, eggplant, and other long-season annuals, but I also seize the chance to diversify my diet with many of the perennial vegetables that ornament my landscape and reconnect me with the pleasures of seasonal foods.
Perennial crops conserve labor and resources, and they extend
the growing season by producing food that can be enjoyed nearly
twelve months a year. The deep roots of well-established perennials access moisture and nutrients when annual crops might struggle. These roots also push growth during the colder months, when pollinators and people are looking for food and few annual seeds would dare to sprout.
If you are shopping spring markets and garden centers, consider
incorporating some of these favorite perennial vegetables into your
landscape beds: asparagus, chives, walking onions, horseradish,
Jerusalem artichoke, ramps, lovage, groundnut, bronze fennel, rhubarb, skirret, sorrel, salad burnet, chicory, and watercress. These and a whole range of perennial herbs and edible flowers add color and texture to your garden, diversity to your yard, and flavor to your life.
Think beyond your garden too! Small woody fruit bushes and
berries are gaining entry back into our urban landscapes; and like
perennials, these help us to eat seasonal foods that we might never
taste fully ripe unless we grew them in our own yards. Some of my
favorites include blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, currant, elderberry, gooseberry, beach plum, and cranberry.
What perennial legacy will you leave in the landscape when you
plant up your wider yard this spring?
Artist: Nikolai Astrup
My book is available at your local bookstore or here: https://www.amazon.com/Heirloom-Gardener-Traditional-Plants-Skills/dp/1604699930/ref=sr_1_1?crid=18IE9KRVYB2L&keywords=john+forti+heirloom+gardener+book&qid=1637012192&qsid=142-2534266-1903157&sprefix=john+Forti%2Caps%2C304&sr=8-1&sres=1604699930%2C1635650836%2C0486429784%2C1452145768%2C0760368724%2C1641525096%2CB097L1DXL7%2C076035992X%2CB08W7DMWZ3%2C1571988459%2C1525804618%2C1401324398%2C0988474913%2C1603442138%2C1616895543%2C1603421386&srpt=ABIS_BOOK
