Weeks before it's safe to transplant tomato seedlings outside, or even before most of his newly sown vegetables can break through the gradually warming soil, harvesting has begun in John Forti's Maine garden.
Growing perennial edibles can help you cover what Forti calls your “shoulder seasons” and eliminate the need to replant every year after that.
“Perennial crops tell a great story of resilience,” he said of perennial crops. “I think that's why our ancestors grew them, because they grow when annual vegetables don't.”
In March and April, he begins the task of pruning the leaves of lemon-like sorrel (Rumex acetosa). Forti, a horticulturist, garden historian and ethnobotanist, says these hardy trees were a lifeline, especially in the days before supermarkets. Some bravely bore fruit before and after frost. Their extraordinary longevity defined sustainability before the word was fashionable.
“But thanks to the delicious flavors of the life force stored in the ground over winter, we get to nourish ourselves and enjoy our first vegetables,” Forti added.
With sorrel, “it's just mouthwatering; it has this amazing citrus smell and green color. Eating the first leaves every spring is like a rite of passage,” he says.
He adds the first sprouting leaves to salads, and when he has enough, he makes sorrel soup or a green sauce for fish.
And your sorrel plant will keep growing. When the sorrel starts to stretch and the older leaves become bitter, cut it back “flat to the ground,” says Forti. Do this about once a month to keep the plant producing fresh leaves through frost.
Why is sorrel not planted in any vegetable gardens in areas where it is hardy (zones 3 through 7)?
Forti may be known among gardening enthusiasts as the “Heirloom Gardener,” after the title of his 2021 book and popular Facebook page. He has overseen gardens at the Plymouth Patuxet Museum (formerly Plimouth Plantation Museum) in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Strawberry Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, among others. He currently serves as executive director of Bedrock Gardens in Lee, New Hampshire, just across the Piscataqua River from his home in Maine. The gardens are a 30-acre historic farm converted into a public garden and art space.
An avid cook and preserver of a variety of concoctions, including chive vinegar, ramp salt, and rhubarb chutney, Forti is also a longtime activist for the Slow Food USA movement and the American Herb Society, so it's no surprise that he has a special connection to the edible parts of the “long, deep, acre” garden that surrounds the home he's lived in for 23 years.
“I start each day with a walk in the garden with a cup of tea or coffee,” he says, “to see what's growing, what I can add to dinner, and what's pleasing to the eye.”
A treasure trove of garden stories
Edible perennials “have cultural resonance with victory gardens,” Forti said. Edible plants are especially satisfying when they're heirloom species, he added, because growing heirlooms is “one of the first steps in heirloom gardening.”
As spring approaches, seven clumps of lamps (Allium tricoccum) are also ready. He planted them in the woods behind his house, hoping to grow them himself rather than burden the wild local inhabitants with his collection. He also harvests spreading ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris), another forest native that he planted, from which the plant weaves romantically around the garden's perimeter.
But his morning walks are about more than just harvesting ingredients: they're also full of stories.
A vigorous patch of rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum), an early-rising plant, sprouts from roots inherited from the garden of his grandparents, whom he knew from childhood, and a second rhubarb is a gift from his old gardening mentor, whom he knew in Plymouth, who has died aged 97.
Forti considers his home garden, and any garden, as “living history” as the museum gardens he oversees.
“It's a place with a story,” he says, “and I base it off of stories, because I think we all inherit a landscape when we move into a house, and we embed parts of ourselves and our stories in that landscape, and I've always liked being part of that continuum.”
He added: “These are all part of our annual reunions with our loved ones.”
When asked about “his” horseradish (a perennial crucifer grown for its pungent roots), he quickly explains that it's actually Shiva Shapiro's horseradish, which he inherited when the Ukrainian-Jewish immigrant's early 20th century garden was unearthed during the restoration and redevelopment of the historic community of Strawberry Bank.
These heirloom plants tell a story while holding the garden together.
“I love that they're all together partying and there's no space to pull weeds in between,” Forti said.
Can there ever be too much of a good thing? Perennial edible plants just require judicious harvesting.
“If we need to control the population, we'll make teas, liqueurs and salads for parties,” he said.
Dual role: ornamental and edible
Sure, these perennials are grown for culinary purposes, but that doesn't mean their ornamental value shouldn't be considered when deciding where to plant them.
“I grow rhubarb the same way other people grow hostas,” Forti says, “I just mix it in where it's appropriate in the garden because I think it's such a distinctive, beautiful-leaved plant.”
He harvests a bounty of the tender stalks, some of which he uses to make a big batch of rhubarb sauce mixed with candied ginger, and eventually the plant blooms, which to him look “like ridiculous clouds of cauliflower towering above the densest foliage.”
Conversely, his hostas are used not only for ornamental purposes but also for food: He first tasted unflowered hosta buds, or hoston, in Japan, where hostas are enjoyed as a spring “mountain vegetable” along with ostrich fern (a lamp-like Allium spp.) and bamboo shoots.
“Who doesn't have extra hostas?” Forti says. “Just snip off a few shoots from the thickest part and you have an early spring green that's easy to cook with, just like you would cook asparagus.”
He was one of many homebound gardening enthusiasts who took advantage of a pandemic spring to plant asparagus, a crop introduced to America in the 17th century, he said. Store-bought asparagus loses vigor after harvest and pales in comparison to the juicy home-grown variety.
“It's so tasty when eaten raw that I can't bring myself to cook it,” he said.
He planted it carefully, taking advantage of its often-overlooked character, much like rhubarb. “I planted it in a focal point, taller than the rest of the garden,” he says. “Later in the season, when the leaves, like the asparagus fern in the living room, grow and are covered in coral berries, it makes a lovely backdrop. It has a very dreamy, airy look.”
Even more ornamental is the little-known native vine, American peanut (Apios americana), which grows up to 10 feet or more tall and produces fragrant pink-brown summer flowers. American peanut is a favorite food source for the giant leaf-cutter wasp and is a host plant for the silver-spotted lycaenid butterfly larvae, says Ulrich Lorimer, horticulture director for the Native Plant Trust.
Forti recommended giving the vines space, perhaps even building a fence to cover them: Mature vines produce underground tubers that resemble small potatoes but are much higher in protein and are a popular addition to soups.
Forti said peanuts are “very assertive,” like the native perennial sunflower, Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus), but he reserves space for them because he savors their gnarled tubers and knows that native plants also support pollinators and other wildlife.
Make space for edible flowers and lovage
Throughout the season, edible flowers such as violets, chives, daylilies and two native monardas enliven Forti's gardens and dishes.
Scarlet beebalm (M. didyma), with its vibrant Earl Grey scent, has leaves used in tea and flowers that are sweet and minty when eaten by hand, while the lavender-colored wild bergamot (M. fistulosa) is “spicier, more like oregano or marjoram,” he says.
But the prize for tastiest flower goes to an unexpected native, the smooth Solomon's seal (Polygonatum biflorum), a shade-loving perennial with a pair of tiny greenish-white tubular spring flowers drooping from arching stems.
What does it taste like? “It's like a mix of peas and sweet flower nectar,” says Forti. “It's juicy, juicy garden candy.”
He suggests reaching under the arching branches and grabbing a handful to pop in your mouth, or using them as a garnish in a salad or sorrel soup. The shoots can also be eaten like asparagus.
And Forti believes too few gardeners have discovered the power of lovage (Levisticum officinale), another plant imported in the 17th century that never became as popular as chives (Allium schoenoprasum) or sage (Salvia officinalis), but Forti thinks it's hard to imagine life without it.
He likens the plant to perennial celery, but with a less delicate flavor. The leaves are used in green salads, egg salads and bean casseroles. “I never make soup without adding lovage,” he says.
He also loves the hollow stalks, which he cuts into pieces to use as straws and “deliver incredible celery flavor in every bite.”
How about a Bloody Mary?
Margaret Roach is the author of the website and podcast “A Way to Garden” and the book of the same name.
If you have a gardening question, email Margaret Roach at gardenqanda@nytimes.com and we may answer it in a future column.
