Planning • Basic Info • Easy Annuals • Easy Perennials • Fun Ideas
EASY PERENNIALS
Once perennials are established, they provide reliable and early source of garden-enjoyment for your students to observe. While perennial plants are typically associated with flowers and ground cover, the following vegetables and herbs can be harvested and eaten by students. For more information, click the name of the plant to see detailed fact sheets.
Asparagus
The key to growing asparagus is good soil drainage for the roots. Other than that, asparagus is a happy plant. It will grow and even thrive in saline, sandy, and low-nutrient soils. To start asparagus, purchase year-old root crowns from your local nursery and simply bury them two inches deep early in the spring. Even the first year you will be able to harvest some of the asparagus’s tender young spears. Harvest these spears before the stalks begin to branch out to avoid the woody, bitter flavor sometimes associated with asparagus. After four weeks of harvesting, simply leave the plants alone to grow and branch out, giving it the chance to store enough food in its roots to survive the winter. Repeat year after year.
Chives
Edible, beautiful, simple… what more could you want? Chives can be started from seeds, transplants, or divided from other established chives. The leaves are mild and can be onion or garlic flavored; though stronger in flavor, even the flowers that these plants form can be eaten. Harvest by snipping the stalks one to two inches above the ground and use as a garnish in salads or on potatoes.
Rhubarb
This cold-loving plant is best started from root crowns, is extremely drought tolerant, and will grow with almost no help from the gardener. After planting the crowns, wait a year to harvest so that roots have a chance to get established. The plants will grow two to three feet tall and wide. Harvest the stalks early in the year and discard the leaves (leaves contain a poisonous compound). Not everybody will like the extreme tartness of this plant; however boiling to soften it, then adding another fruit and some sugar to moderate the flavor can create a delicious ice-cream topping or pie filling. The extreme ease and beauty of this plant are incentives enough to grow it.
Mint
Mint is easiest when transplanted or divided from an established plant. But be careful with this one! Mint is a “vegetative propogater,” meaning that, rather than using seeds to make copies of itself, it actually sends out runners that will put down their own roots, and mint does this very well. It is extremely hardy, will choke out other plants, and needs only partial sunlight to thrive. Because of all this, it is recommended that you plant mint in a container, otherwise you risk a garden takeover!
