Perennial food producers

[ThatBloodyWoman]

In line with my delvings into permaculture,can anyone suggest perennial food plants,please?

I have several fruit trees,a fruit cage,elder, and herbs.(Also nettles if we're being earth mother about this)

I so far have wild garlic,would like to get a couple of globe artichoke,have rhubarb,and assume the jerusalem artichokes I have kind of deserve a space in this category.

Bloodywoman you had better be good at freezing, preserving and brewing, sooner or later you are going to have one heck of a glut.

DH has been on about getting a cobnut or filbert for years, (no idea what the difference is). Never thought about the squirrels pinching them; they often pull my bulbs out of their pots.

I'm very good at eating,if thats any help!

DD's best friend informs me that eating 12 figs is not a good idea.

Tinkly with the change in climate DH and I reckon walnuts are the way to go, but they are massive trees and we don't have enough room.

I used to pick figs at work off a truly enormous tree.
It was a total hornet magnet.

More work places should have fig trees. The wasps are eating the figs at work, cos they are twenty feet off the ground and impossible to get at

What a shame.
My dh knows all the foraging trees around where he works,and has a good scoff.
Its surprising how many trees have fruit on them thats left to rot.

I love walnut trees. they are awesome. We should fill our public parks with them. Then we could each have an ark when the climate change shit hits the fan.

The smell of raking up wet walnut leaves is amazing.

Globe artichokes!! I have also been reading about oca (a potato-like tuber, a kind of yam) but haven't yet grown them myself. They do need to be lifted in the winter and replanted the next year, though, so not perhaps 'truly' perennial.

As well as oca,there's yacon,that I've read about (but not tried either)

I must confess that most of our globe artichokes are just left to flower. Artichokes are a bit faffy to eat aren't they? We keep meaning to try them when they are golf ball sized but always forget.

I lift my oca and save some tubers to plant the next year, however, I always miss some and they just pop back up in the last bed they were in so lifting is not entirely necessary! They now grow in all of my raised beds sticking their little pink oca fingers up at my rotation plans

Right, that's it bertha - I am sold on the oca! Where did I put my credit card?

It is possible to get perennial kale and broccoli. I have just put in some of the former - the pigeons like it as much as the annual stuff...

I try to grow things you can't generally buy in the shops - like true quinces (Cydonia oblonga) - lovely blossom, pretty small trees, and gorgeous fruit if you like cooking - theycan't be eaten raw,