Everlasting Edibles

Some fruits and vegetables are just so darn good, once you taste them, you’ll want to have them in your garden year after year. There’s no going back to store-bought once you’ve tasted the re-appearing home grown treats. I call plants that grow crops without having to replant them every year "Everlasting Edibles." I like "Everlasting Edible" plants because they produce food that has great flavor and they are less work than annual edibles. Some of them, if taken care of properly, will live for over 20 years!

Some of the best "Everlasting Edibles" are in a category we call caneberries. Caneberries include Raspberries and Blackberries. Did you know Oregon is known around the world for some of the best blackberries? I’m not talking about the wild rambling patches found along the roadside, but blackberries like Marions, Boysens, and Logans. These juicy, sweet berries have excellent flavor and once established, can produce as much as 13 pounds of fruit per plant. These vines are well worth their minimal effort. All they require is a trellis for support. Just train their canes and year after year you will have delicious berries in tidy rows. If you take care of them, blackberry canes can produce fruit for over 10 years. Meeker raspberries are another one of my favorite caneberries. Meekers have a high sugar content and long harvest season so they are great in a home garden and perfect in jam.

As long as we are talking about the everlasting enjoyment of berries three more outstanding options are Blueberries, Strawberries and Gooseberries. It’s time to start thinking of the Blueberry plant as a landscape plant, and not just one for a garden. Blueberries are beautiful as shrub plants and can work into any front yard nicely. In the fall their leaves change into bright shades of yellow, red and orange, and actually last longer than the leaves of most burning bushes. Plant a blueberry bush variety like ‘Chandler’ and get ready for years of sweet blueberries that are almost as big as cherries. We like to say around Al’s, with the ‘Chandler’ blueberries, you take one blueberry, put it in the middle of your piecrust, wrap your crust around the single berry and you’ve got a blueberry pie. Strawberries are one of the shortest lived of the "Everlasting Edibles". One plant will typically produce an excellent crop for 3 years. After 3 years, the strawberry plant gets tired, produces fewer, smaller berries and really should be replaced. Oh, but the flavor of home-grown strawberries; especially my favorite variety, Hood, there’s nothing like ‘em.

Fruit trees are another group of "Everlasting Edibles." Did you know an apple tree has an average lifespan of 35 years! Whether you like the crisp, tartness of a ‘Honeycrisp’ or the mild sweetness of a ‘Gala’, you can plant an apple tree and hope to harvest fruit for half a lifetime. Pear, cherry, plum and peach trees also produce fruit year after year. If you treat them right, fruit trees can be a near permanent part of your edible landscape.

Finally, a group of "Everlasting Edibles" that live closer to the ground, which include plants like horseradish, rhubarb and my all time favorite asparagus. I love fresh asparagus. I never get tired of eating the fresh spears, just snapped out of my garden. Asparagus is so delicious; I’ve written some special tips on how to plant it. Read all about growing asparagus on the next page (pg. 18). Horseradish should come with a warning….be careful! This vigorous plant can produce a lot of horseradish roots, and anyone who’s ever eaten fresh horseradish knows that a little goes a long way. The taste is fantastic, nothing like store bought, just don’t overdo it.

Last on my short list, of a much longer list of "Everlasting Edibles" is Rhubarb. A well cared for crown of rhubarb can keep your family in pies, cobblers and crumbles for 20 years. My mouth puckers up just at the thought. The secret to success with rhubarb is to not plant the crown too deep. The crown needs to be poking out of the ground or the plant will rot. The red stalks and green foliage are a bright, attractive addition to your seasonal garden.

Seasons may come and go, but by planting a few of the "Everlasting Edibles" you can invite a lifelong friend into your garden and your dishes