Perennial Food Planner
Some of the most resilient food you can grow is planted a single time and harvested for years, even decades. Tell us about your garden and we will suggest the perennial edibles that will quietly feed your household season after season.
Type of food
Sunlight
Space you have
First harvest
Find your perennials per month (when to plant it)
16 perennials match your garden
Asparagus
Asparagus officinalis
The classic plant-once perennial. Give it a permanent, weed-free bed with rich soil and it will send up sweet spears every spring for decades. Resist harvesting the first two years so the crowns build strength.
Rhubarb
Rheum rhabarbarum
One of the first harvests of the year and almost impossible to kill. A single healthy crown gives armfuls of stalks for pies, sauces and preserves each spring.
Globe Artichoke
Cynara scolymus
A striking, architectural plant that doubles as an ornamental. From its second year it produces tender flower buds, and its silver foliage feeds pollinators if a few heads are left to bloom.
Horseradish
Armoracia rusticana
Plant a piece of root and you will have horseradish forever. Dig roots in autumn for a fiery, gut-warming condiment that stores well through winter.
Egyptian Walking Onion
Allium × proliferum
A self-renewing onion that plants itself. It grows little bulbils at the top of each stalk which bend over, root, and “walk” across the bed, giving you onions and green tops nearly year round.
Welsh Onion
Allium fistulosum
A hardy, clumping bunching onion that gives fresh green stalks all season and shrugs off hard frost. Snip what you need and the clump keeps regrowing.
Chives
Allium schoenoprasum
The most forgiving perennial herb. A small clump gives mild onion flavour from early spring and its purple flowers are edible and loved by bees.
Garlic Chives
Allium tuberosum
Flat-leaved cousins of chives with a gentle garlic flavour and pretty white late-summer flowers. Hardy, undemanding, and productive for years.
French Sorrel
Rumex acetosa
One of the earliest fresh greens of the year, with a bright, citrusy tang for soups and salads. It bounces back again and again through the season.
Sea Kale
Crambe maritima
A tough, handsome coastal native whose blanched spring shoots taste like a delicate cross of cabbage and asparagus. Long-lived and very hardy.
Perennial Kale & Tree Collards
Brassica oleracea
Non-flowering kales that live for years, giving a steady supply of leaves through winter when little else grows. Grown from cuttings, so they never set seed.
Jerusalem Artichoke
Helianthus tuberosus
Also called sunchokes, these give tall sunflowers in summer and heavy crops of knobbly, nutty tubers in autumn. Extremely productive and drought-tolerant.
Lovage
Levisticum officinale
A big, generous herb that tastes strongly of celery. One plant flavours countless soups and stocks, returns faithfully each spring, and needs almost no care.
Good King Henry
Blitum bonus-henricus
An old cottage-garden perennial spinach. Its spring shoots can be eaten like asparagus and its leaves like spinach, long after annual greens have bolted.
Wild Garlic (Ramsons)
Allium ursinum
Perfect for a shady, damp corner where little else thrives. It carpets the ground with garlicky spring leaves and white edible flowers, then quietly rests through summer.
Watercress
Nasturtium officinale
A nutrient-dense perennial green for a pond edge, boggy spot, or simply a pot stood in a tray of water. Cut-and-come-again through the cooler months.