Today we are going to share with you five perennial garden plants you only have to plant once and feed forever. In this article we are going to share our own gardening experience.
So, without any delay, let’s begin.
Asparagus

This is the first perennial that will feed you forever. This is the first perennial spring crop I harvest. Once I see them popping out of the ground. It always motivates me to get out in the garden more. Home grown asparagus tastes nothing like store bought ones. Home grown ones are so tender and sweet that you can eat raw fresh out of the garden. They aren’t stringy at all, and so much juicy liquid drips out of the bottom of them after you harvest. If you don’t already have an asparagus patch growing, I suggest you get one planted now.
The quickest and easiest way to get a patch going is to purchase one year old crowns. When planting the crown you should dig a trench 12 inches wide and 6 to 8 inches deep. Then make a small mound in the bottom of the trench and put the crown on top. This will help you spread out the dripping roots of the asparagus plant and encourage them not tangle themselves up.
Next, cover them up with 2 inches of soil and water it. In 2 weeks add another 2 inches of soil and continue to follow the same process until you are back at the same soil level you started with. Planting asparagus from crowns or the root will save you a year of time but planting asparagus from seed will give you a major advantage.
Asparagus plants are either male or female. Male tend to be more productive because the females waste a lot of their growth energy on the production of seed instead of solely on the production of spears. If you grow asparagus from seed, what you can do is identify the females when they are young. You can see they start to flower. Remove female asparagus. This way the only asparagus we plant into our patch are only male. This will ensure that our patch is much higher yielding.
Strawberries

Going out on a beautiful spring day and grabbing a fresh bucket of strawberries is about as close to paradise as you will get on this earth in my opinion. Some varieties that you can grow at home are nothing like the ones from the store. They are incredibly sweet, immensely juicy, and addictively delicious.
I suggest you get your strawberry patch started by planting bare root strawberries. You can get some great varieties. My favorite is Shuksan strawberries.Strawberries do best when they are in full sun, and they will grow well in most soils. They also grow fantastic in containers. So if you don’t have a lot of space that’s no problem.
When planting strawberries, I suggest soaking the plants in water as you are planting them out. This allows the root to rehydrate a bit before planting. A good technique when planting is dig a hole then make a mound in the centre and place the strawberry crown on that mound to allow the root to drape off the sides and spread out in all directions. Also when planting be very careful not to bury the crown of the strawberry plant because this is where the leaves will infold from.
When your young newly planted strawberry plants first flower, although it’s going to be hard, I suggest that you remove those flowers. This way your young plants don’t focus all of their energy on production of small berries instead they can focus on becoming strong established plants that feed you forever.
Brambles
Another perennial crop that will feed you forever are brambles. Brambles are like raspberries and blackberries.
Brambles grow like weeds. So just keep the area weed free and your plants will thrive. An important thing about brambles is knowing how to prune them to make sure you get the largest harvest possible. For most brambles, like summer-bearing raspberries or blackberries, they fruit on 2-year-old canes. and most of the fruits are lateral branches. Fall raspberries you can cut to the ground after they fruit and canes will shoot up and be loaded with fruit in the early fall.
If you don’t have some brambles planted, I suggest you start with some fall-bearing raspberries; the yellow ones are my favorite, the fall gold and the yellow. In my opinion they are the best tasting varieties out there plus raspberries will grow in a pot. So, if you don’t have a lot of space and maybe only space for patio garden brambles will be a great addition.
Perennial Herbs

Next perennial that will feed you forever is perennial herbs like oregano, thyme, and rosemary. I put an oregano plant in my garden about 5 to 7 years ago. Every year it gets bigger and bigger and I have barely done a thing for it. The only thing that i do is in late fall or early spring i will come out and just prune back flower stalks beside that the only thing I do is harvest from it. It not only provides fresh oregano but it also brings an incredible amount of pollinators when it’s flowering and the whole plant just looks absolutely beautiful.
I even plant herbs like rosemary once and can get years and years of production out of it. Even though it’s a bit intolerant to cold. What I do, I grow my Rosemary in the garden then when the cold weather starts to set in I dig up my Rosemary and plant it in a pot then move it in my greenhouse or in my house. This allows me to grow it all year long and if I want I can pop it back in the ground in the spring.
Mint is another herb that can be planted once that will feed you for life, but it can spread a little bit too much in a garden and become invasive. If you want to plant mint I suggest that you plant it in a pot. If you don’t plant it in a pot and you plant it in the garden before you know it your garden might primarily become a mint garden.
There are a number of other herbs you can plant like lemon bombs that are easy to grow and will add flavour to your dishes for the rest of your life.
Blueberries
The fifth perennial that will feed you forever is one that I can’t live without. I am talking about blueberries. Blueberries are hands down my favourite fresh crop to eat from the garden. There’s nothing like grabbing a handful of them and the pink lemonade blueberries have become my alltime favourite blueberry. Incredible colour, sweet flavour there is nothing like it.
Blueberries like growing in a soil that’s acidic. So when planting it’s a good idea to mix in some pete Moss or some pine needles to bring the PH down to a level where blueberries will thrive. Blueberries require a soil pH of 4.0 to 5.3 for best growth. If you have super alkaline soil it might not be worth it to plant blueberries in the ground but they grow fantastic into the containers.
Just make sure if you plant blueberries especially in containers that you plant two different cultivars because they are not self fertile.Something I suggest you try is even in a container, plant two different varieties of blueberries in the same spot. When planting blueberries I suggest you plant 2 to 3 year old plants because blueberries usually take about 5 to 8 years until they reach full production.
Perennials I wouldn't plant
There are additional plants too that I didn’t feel were worth mentioning. One of them is sun chokes. Some people like saying that sun chokes are great and that you should plant them in the garden but in my garden opinion they are not worth it. They are a perennial that will probably grow forever but it will end up being something that you probably don’t want. They do not taste anything like potatoes even though some people say they will. I would rather just plant potatoes every year rather than have sun chokes sometimes called Jerusalem artichokes in the garden. They also can become invasive. So I think that sometimes rare plants are rare.
Final thought
We hope we brought you some value, and we hope that you plant some of these perennials in your garden and start to focus more on a perennial mindset instead of just on an annual mindset. It’s great to grow annuals but it’s even better to grow annuals and have perennials in the background. Always producing and working so they can just continue to feed you forever.
Happy gardening!