Patience dock/sorrel/spinach

[me&thegals]

This link will lead you to a Mother Earth News blog about this plant and free seeds. It is a "spinach" variety that is hardy to zone 4. I got the free seeds last year, but none of them came up.

Has anybody grown this or used it? IMO, if it is unusual, perennial, healthy and easy, I want to grow it!

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/Easy-Perennial-Salad-Greens-Patience-Dock-Sorrel.aspx

 

[me&thegals]

Thought I would add the address in case anybody would like some:

Patience Dock Seed Offer
Heidi Hunt-Mother Earth News
1503 SW 42nd St.
Topeka, KS 66609

 

[kellygirrl]

I read that article but forgot to send for seeds. Maybe I will now. I'd love to hear your other "unusual, perennial, healthy, and easy" plant success stories. Cuz that's the proverbial sandbox I'm playing in. New thread, maybe?

My sister is on a farm in New Glarus. Anywhere near you?

 

[me&thegals]

Hey Kellygirrl--I'm just awful with directions and geography. I'm about 45 min from Madison. Is that by New Glarus?

I just posted to an old thread I had about unusual produce. Maybe you can find some great ideas there!

 

[kellygirrl]

Well, my sister is 45 minutes from Madison, but don't ask me which direction. I was just happy when I learned I spent 13 years of my adult life in southEAST Iowa. I also know up from down, usually.

Okay, I found your old thread, I'll spend time with it later.

I find self seeders (often "weeds") to be more productive (easy garden style) than perennial vegetables (with exceptions like maybe the Spring Tree Raintree sells, which is after all a big tree). But there's a whole world and I could go on and on.

I'm looking forward to eating lunch with your old thread. I like to experiment. (But I really want to establish more permanent food systems.)

WI is beautiful, by the way. We have to work a little harder in Iowa, to overcome the flatness and monocultures.

 

[me&thegals]

I was reading one of Michael Pollan's books while riding through IA last summer. It was about monocropping in IA--and I surely was completely surrounded by corn and soybeans! There's most that here, too, but an incredible number of small CSA and organic farms popping up everywhere

By the way, IA has some amazing things there, too, which I'm sure you're aware of like Seed Saver's Exchange and Sand Hill Preservation.

I'm interested in perennial veggies, too, mainly to have something to count on year after year with just maintenance work. Or, as you mention, really reliable self seeders. So far, I can only think of dill and sunflowers as fitting in this category. Anyway, I'll be excited to hear your input on perennial, self-seeding and unusual vegetables!

 

[kellygirrl]

I should not be in front of the computer right now. But this is my kind of avoidance.

Iowa used to be fruit orchards until an unseasonal freeze in the 40's. Then it was easier to get the quick return of annuals, and there was no going back, apparently, the corn and soy megolith had its rule. But there is some woodsy here beauty, too, even here in SE Iowa, and some prairie restoration by private owners. I'm fortunate to be in a small but disproportionately progressive town, lots of sustainable projects and off the grid stuff nearby.

I talked perhaps with excess enthusiastic verbiage in another thread on perennial onions, about my early spring favorites: magenta lambsquarters, purple orach, Egyptian walking onions, and my self seeded mache. Oh, and large purple mustard which is great for salad when young, or steamed when mature. That'll happen in March, I'm so excited, I'll be able to stuff myself silly on fresh greens. Of course violets and dandelions, soon, too. Violet leaves steam nicely, mixed with other greens. I have an area in my not too big back yard I'm designating for self seeding. Many, many things will seed if you let them, like lettuce. Last fall I had self seeded radishes and bok choy, I think, though not a ton and a little late before freeze, but still some surprise eating. Plus, one little radish will put out a ton of "radish beans", crisp spicy mini green beans or pea pods, super fun novelty food (on a nice bushy plant you may or may not have planned the space for lol). Veggies gone to seed can look a little wild and gangly. Now I know why when a person looks like they're "going to seed" it's not such a good thing. But the pollinators love it (from a plant, anyway). I had coriander/cilantro coming back til I mulched too heavily that area, and tons of other herbs (like dill) will do the same, which I will experience more of in my newly designated area. (I have bronze fennel coming up in an alley bed.) Lovage and sorrel (many varieties available from Richter's Herbs) are nice perennials I should have more of. I used to have more Jersusalem artichokes until I dug a giant hole for a pond I decided I couldn't afford yet; but I'm going to move them to a spot in the alley, where hopefully the City will leave them be. I also like to throw my top seeding garlic all over my brambles and grape areas, where they are supposed to be disease preventive, who knows, but I get lots of yummy garlic greens throughout the season and then bulbs in the fall, from self seeding (and occasional me-hurling) plants. Though I grow a regular garlic patch, too, softneck, I guess that don't seed. I'm thinking about introducing a better hardneck keeper, and seeing if I can "naturalize" it instead of what I have.

I'm starting cinnamon yam vines, perennial bulb onions, Oikos nursery winter hardy perennial purple potato patch and many other things. Eventually I'll have a good list, and my experience to back it up.

Oh, and a super under utilized plant is anise hyssop. Young leaves are fantastic in salad, mystery delight ingredient, all parts and flower edible. In the fall, I juice hyssop, plantains, grass yes grass (I read up on it), with foraged apples from around town, and I feel like the smartest person in the world, getting free "killer" nutrition.

This is what comes to mind, but there's plenty more. Wow, I better go do something with my life.

Kelly