Backyard Farm

This is the time of year when the seed catalogs start to arrive. I love to indulge in plant fantasies fueled by the almost pornographic photos of tomatoes and all manner of fruit and veg pictured in these catalogs.

I will undoubtedly order plenty of seeds and plants for the summer, but I am also going to try to increase the amount of "automatic" food I have in my yard.

I came across an article on perennial vegetables recently. Vegetable that propagate themselves either by root spreading or reseeding so that you build a perpetual food source.

Here's the list of suggestions, courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Cardoon: Though it looks like an artichoke plant, cardoon differs from its more familiar cousin in that it is primarily the midribs of the leaves that are eaten, rather than its flower buds.

Traditionally, cardoon leaves are blanched by being bent over and buried under the soil, though they don't have to be. Sliced and cooked cardoon midribs taste like a plateful of artichoke hearts. Only one or two plants are needed to produce a pile of midribs.

French sorrel: The leaves of French sorrel add a lemony tang to soups and salads. In mild climates, the leaves are edible year-round, especially on varieties that never flower. Cutting back the flower stalk will ensure a long supply of tender greens.

Jerusalem artichoke: (a.k.a. sunchokes) The Jerusalem artichoke grows 4 to 12 feet tall and produces small flowers resembling wild sunflowers. Its tubers are crisp, nutty and sweet, and can be eaten raw, baked, boiled in soups or mashed along with potatoes. When harvesting, simply leave some tubers in the ground to produce the following year's crop. (If the tubers are not thinned by harvesting, Jerusalem artichokes can spread rapidly.) Inulin, a storage starch in Jerusalem artichokes, can cause gas, especially for those unaccustomed to eating them. Inulin is believed to improve the body's ability to absorb calcium, and to increase beneficial microbes in the digestive tract.

Lovage: Lovage is a large celery-like perennial that grows up to 6 feet tall. Its flavor is very intense. The young leaves and stems lend themselves well to soups (later growth is too strong-tasting to eat), and the seeds can be used for flavoring. In cold areas lovage, like French sorrel, is often one of the first greens to emerge.

Mashua: An Andean root crop, mashua is a relative of the nasturtium. Mashua is a vigorously growing vine; give it a trellis to climb. Its red and yellow blooms are favorites of hummingbirds. After the frost kills the aboveground part of the plant, it's time to dig out the long, white, fingerlike tubers, which can be baked, roasted or put in a soup. Mashua has a unique peppery flavor. Plants produce dozens of tubers; the best can be saved and replanted like potatoes, but since it is hard to find all the tubers, mashua, like the Jerusalem artichoke, often becomes a "true" perennial, regrowing from unharvested tubers.

Nettle: Be warned that nettles are covered with stinging hairs; wear gloves and use scissors to harvest the leaves and fresh shoots. A quick cooking will take away the sting, and the cooked tender leaves and shoots taste like spinach. Steam, boil or use like spinach. Nettles are high in protein, vitamins A and C, iron, magnesium, calcium, potassium and fiber. Nettles spread by both rhizome and seed, forming a dense patch.

Oca: Another Andean root crop grown similar to potatoes. The tubers are harvested at the end of the growing season. Yields will be higher if tubers are dug and replanted. Oca not only tastes delicious both raw and cooked, but it also produces high yields in small spaces. With leaves that look like clover, oca grows in clumps about 1 foot high. The California coast is one of the few locations suitable to grow oca in North America because oca does not begin to form tubers until late in the summer, and then still needs at least two to three frost-free months to ripen them fully.

Pepino dulce: The pepino plant actually produces a fruit rather than a vegetable, although unripe fruits are sliced and eaten like cucumbers. When ripe, pepino fruits are about the size of a large tomato with beautiful yellow skin bearing purple, gray or green stripes. The flesh tastes similar to cantaloupe. Like the tomato, the pepino benefits from staking. A frost below 28 degrees will kill the pepino to the ground, but it will resprout in the spring if the roots weren't damaged.

Tree collards: Tree collards produce a kale-like brassica leaf year-round in cooler climates. The leaves are good steamed, braised and in soups, stews and casseroles. Tree collards may not be as productive where summers are hot. Tree collards can be left to spread out along the ground, eventually occupying a large area with a mini-thicket 3 feet tall or so. Alternatively, where space is tight, tree collards can be trellised.

Yacón: An aster, and yet another Andean root crop, yacón produces small, football-like tubers that are mostly eaten raw, similar to a jicama. Yacón is crunchy, juicy and a bit sweet, lending itself to crudites. Yacón grows into a lush 6-foot-tall shrub. The large storage tubers form below a crown of smaller tubers, which are broken apart and replanted at harvest. Like Jerusalem artichokes, yacón contains inulin.

There is nothing like the feeling of being able to go out into your yard and bring in fresh, delicious, nutricious, beautiful fruit, vegetables and herbs.

I love it and I look forward to this kind of fun all winter long. Actually during all but the coldest weeks of winter I can still gather some hardy greens and some herbs like rosemary.