Early Spring Greens in the Perennial Garden

One wonderful thing about perennial vegetables, and greens in particular, is that they get going earlier than many annual greens can even be planted. In this post, I’ll show six perennial garden greens that are already up and running in late March in my Pacific Northwest food garden.

Garden sorrel - Rumex acetosa

First we have garden sorrel. This is a perennial plant, and reminiscent of spinach, but with a much more lemony taste. It is high in oxalates, which can be damaging to your kidneys in high amounts, so I recommend cooking this plant and using it sparingly. I love to pick a few leaves to add to my breakfast sautes. It is very unproblematic for me, and overwintered splendidly. You can use it in small quantities in fresh salads as well when you want a lemony kick.

Dandelion - Taraxacum officinale

Next is a well known spring plant - dandelion. This plant is so vital as an early food source for bumblebees, and such a welcome sunny face after months of brown sleeping winter. An exciting thing about this plant is that all parts are edible! You can batter fry the flowers, you can cook the stems like noodles, you can eat the leaves fresh or cooked as a green, and the root is great roasted and then steeped as a tea or coffee substitute. It is highly nutritious, and the bitter taste helps get your digestive juices flowing to refresh your body after the heavy foods of winter and the holidays.

It is known for being weedy, and it is. But leave as much of it in your garden as you can, for your own consumption and for the pollinators. The deep tap root is also beneficial for soil health and bringing up nutrients to the leaves. If you end up pulling the plants and don’t want to eat them, they make an excellent addition to compost or compost tea.

Sochan, aka Cut-Leaf Rudbeckia - Rudbeckia laciniata

I learned about Sochan from a podcast by Aaron Parker (Propaganda by the Seed): https://edgewood-nursery.com/podcast/2023/4/30/sochan-with-nico-albert-williams

Sochan is/was an important green for Indigenous people in the midwest and eastern parts of the United States. It’s easy to grow, spreads but not crazily, and is important for pollinators too. It goes great thrown in you mixed greens saute or soup. The flowers get very tall, and is just a fun plant in general.

Red veined sorrel - Rumex sanguineus

Red veined sorrel is a happy self-seeder, and has some interesting color. To me, red veined sorrel is milder in taste and better suited to salads than regular garden sorrel. I like to pick a few leaves to make my salad even prettier. If you let it go to seed, you will have lots of volunteers, so be warned. I don’t mind having a lot of it, because it means more greens for me.

Caucasian Mountain Spinach - Hablitzia tamnoides

This is one of my all time favorite greens. It’s native to the Caucasus Mountain region, and likes to be protected from strong afternoon sun. There is a very cool YouTube video showing someone happening upon a huge colony of Hablitzia in a cave in Armenia, if I remember correctly: https://youtu.be/XfnNkZjQBio?si=mNZ4KlS6alcdTOZv

This excellent plant vines quite high, mine got up to about ten feet high last year. It starts leafing out very early, usually around February around here. You can eat it at this stage, but I like to wait till it starts climbing. I’m not sure if there’s any merit to my worry, but I get concerned if I harvest too much too soon, I will stunt it for later.

This plant is great because you can eat it raw or cooked, from about March - October. It doesn’t get tough or bitter. It seeds prolifically so you can make more of it. Starting from seed can be dicey but once established, Hablitzia is hardy and tough. I had two lovely plants, but sadly one did succumb to voles over the winter. I have some more babies in the works fortunately. A+ plant all around.

Stinging nettle - Urtica dioica

Here we have the OG of spring greens, nettles!

One of my all time favorite plants, despite the sting. Nettles are extremely nutritious, and delicious. They have a wonderful earthy and fresh flavor that is different than any other green. When the plants are short and young, before flowering, this is the time you can eat them. Later in the season, when it starts to flower, you don’t want to consume them as a food, as they become high in silicates. However, they are still safe to dry and use as a tea. You can chop them down quite a bit and they will keep growing and branching. I harvested nettles all year last year, for food in March/April, and for tea the rest of the year.

More than a food or medicine, nettles are an excellent fiber crop. I haven’t done it myself, but you can use the stems in such a way to make a strong cordage. Additionally, the seeds are very nutritious (just dry lightly and use as a seasoning), and the root is medicinal as well.

I love nettles and actively cultivate it in my garden, but it grows wild in many shady, moist places around the PNW. If you are foraging wild, please make sure the location you are harvesting in is free of pesticides or other toxins, and that you are legally able to harvest there.

YouTube Channel is Alive!

Nothing much to report but I wanted to post in order to direct people to my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@makesomeplantfriends

I just uploaded three videos I filmed yesterday, little garden tours talking about what’s happening and growing in the early spring in my garden. I plan to do several of these throughout the growing season, focusing on something different each time. I’d like to do shorter videos as well, profiling individual plants more in depth.

I also intend to start posting actual blog content soon. ADHD plus two kids plus four cats plus life stuff … makes it hard for me to get certain things done!

Also! TOMORROW is the Fairhaven Neighbors Annual Plant and Tree Sale, I’ll be there with bells (and plants) on, so if you’re local to the NW corner of Washington state, come to the sale! It’s always big and busy with many awesome vendors.