High Protein Perennials

What High Protein Perennials are you growing?
What High Protein Perennials do you want to grow?

My runner beans pop up for years. While I basically treat them as annuals as their production drops off fast, I'm always pleased to see them come up again.
I love dried and green beans and they love growing up fences in pretty marginal cconditions. Beans are awesome

I am planning on growing runner beans, not till next year though. I live on five and a half acres. My wife and I bought this property almost a year ago, so I am in the beginning of of my permaculture project. I would like to become as self sufficient as possible.

Leila Rich wrote:My runner beans pop up for years. While I basically treat them as annuals as their production drops off fast, I'm always pleased to see them come up again.
I love dried and green beans and they love growing up fences in pretty marginal cconditions. Beans are awesome

So if I plant them at the garden edges they'll colonize the chicken wire keeping the rabbits out. Sounds like a good idea.

Max, your winters are way colder than mine: 'perennial' for me may be frozen mush for you
But climate aside, I grow runner beans on any unused-ish vertical-ish space. Don't grow them up young trees! I thought I was making the most of my espalier trellis, but the beans totally swamped the trees

Groundnut 17% protein, and a native U.S. plant.

How is the harvesting of home grown ground nut?
I'm planning on have a bed area dedicated to ground nut and another dedicated to sunchokes.

I recently have put in lots and lots of nut trees of all kinds, however, none of them have produced nuts yet, but I'm planning for the future. I have 4 kinds of walnuts (black, carpathian, butternut and heartnuts), hazelnuts, sweet chestnuts, almond and hickory nuts..some may take the rest of my life to produce a single nut..and then some may produce a small crop next year?

I also plant the usual garden plants (beans, peas,etc) and try to put in a lot of root crops like Jerusalem Artichokes, etc..haven't found any apios yet but would like to try it

Brenda Groth wrote: ...some may take the rest of my life to produce a single nut..and then some may produce a small crop next year?

I once read that "a responsible land steward plants trees from which he/she will never see the fruit." Thank you!

What's nice about what I am doing is that I am still pretty young, in my late 20s. My wife and I just had our first child. I'm excited to share these projects with my son and to teach him about these plants, and leave these to him. I really want to plant nut and seed trees, maybe next year or the year after. I bought some sunchokes at the grocery store and planted some of them, there are now shoots coming up. Kinda cool, huh?

Brenda Groth wrote:haven't found any apios yet but would like to try it

I got mine from Oikos Tree Crops, but I think they died, too dry here....

http://www.oikostreecrops.com

"I once read that "a responsible land steward plants trees from which he/she will never see the fruit."



I must be one heck of a land steward. I've planted apple trees and the grasshoppers have killed them all. So, I'll never see any fruit!

thanks for the encouragement..I have planted hundreds of trees ..I try to plant 20 or 30 every year on our property..and a lot of them will likely never fruit in my lifetime (61 now) however..if I live to be over 100 I should get some food from them (if I still have enough teeth to eat nuts, right now I still have a full head of teeth)

Brenda Groth wrote:thanks for the encouragement..I have planted hundreds of trees ..I try to plant 20 or 30 every year on our property..and a lot of them will likely never fruit in my lifetime (61 now) however..if I live to be over 100 I should get some food from them (if I still have enough teeth to eat nuts, right now I still have a full head of teeth)

Dang! 20 or 30 every year? That's impressive! Do you have a master plan of sorts or do you just kinda wing it as you go? Do you prune them all or just let them grow wild?

Brenda Groth wrote:thanks for the encouragement..I have planted hundreds of trees ..I try to plant 20 or 30 every year on our property..and a lot of them will likely never fruit in my lifetime (61 now) however..if I live to be over 100 I should get some food from them (if I still have enough teeth to eat nuts, right now I still have a full head of teeth)

That's amazing. I'm glad I'm starting my projects at the age of 27.

We have nuts, chestnuts, beans and moringa (haven't tried it yet). We have also grown tiger nuts (very tasty tubers from a grass).

I would like to grow pigeon peas (a legume but it is a subtropical crop), groundnut, mulberry (leaves very high in protein, fruit is tasty too).
I am also sprouting honey locust, siberian pea and mesquite pods (all legume trees), but I don't know how far edible those species are.

Can't remember any other perennial protein!
These are certainly some of the most productive ones.

I don't know about the protein content of yampa, biscuit roots and prairie turnip, those were some herbaceous roots staples from the Native Americans..

dark leafy greens have decent amounts of protein with out the fat ratio of nuts and seeds. The key imo to stomaching large amounts of greens is to separate the juice from the fiber with a masticating juicer. The cheaper high speed blade type of juicers don't work as well but they will do. The pulp can be used as mulch, compost, or animal feed.

Dark leafy greens are tasty but not a staple. Good crops but you can't live only from them.

What I think we look for, when we aim for greater self-sufficiency, is crops high in protein and also crops also in starch. Those are the kind of stuff that feeds you if you are mostly vegetarian.

Annual-wise we have most pulses/legumes and potatoes. And we also have cereals, corn and rice.
The interesting bit is to search for perennials as alternatives to these crops. And large yielding ones.

In the tropics, pigeon peas are a good perennial legume, in our temperate climates, runner beans are the most obvious choice, but there are other possibilities. Mulberry leaf is high in protein, Moringa is also but needs a warmer climate. Groundnut is high in protein and there are some high yielding cultivars (see "nutty" variety from Oikostreecrops). Then, we have the nuts, high yielding but take plenty of time to grow (chestnuts, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, korean pines).

Starch-wise, we could look for those less known Oca, Mashua, Mauka and Ulluco roots, but these often have problems to crop (they need short days, longer nights to set tubers) or otherwise their taste is not so interesting. They are certainly starchy as is groundnut (I have never grown groundnut because I can't find an European supplier). I particularly like jerusalem artichokes and yacon as they are strong plants and very high yielding, but they are not starchy at all!

I am almost sure there are many more tubers I haven't thought of. Arrowhead, Air Potatoes, Yams, Jícama comes to my mind too.
Some are subtropical, and as you go further warmer, the choice becomes much larger: sago palm trees, dates, enset and many other crops.
Cereal wise there are few perennial choices and they are low yielding, such as mountain rye or indian ricegrass. Not so positive the situation there.

I am glad to see this discussion! Let's see what other suggestions come!



Groundnut

didn't want to hijack your protein thread..but no I don't prune any of the trees....other than removing dead or badly crossing branches..etc.

No there isn't a real master plan other than getting as much food producing perennial plantlife on this property, and esp proteins. But also I plant not only food for people but for the wildlife as that also is a protein here if we need it, although we haven't done hunting in 30 plus years...but we could as we have tons of wildlife.

I began planting trees on this property in 1971 when we bought the property and I have an oak that i planted from an acorn in 1973 and it is still growing, but even that old little oak hasn't had any acorns as of yet..in almost 40 years.

Each year I attempt to put in a few nut trees, a few fruit trees, a few berry type trees (service berry, mulberry, etc.) as well as bushes and vines..I actually feel guilty about spending the $ to buy the trees so I do try to plant some from seed or from neighbors when I can get those..and I also transplant dozens and dozens of baby trees moving them around the property ..i find that there are often too many baby trees all smashed close together in some spots on the property where they can't all survive, or a baby maple on the drainfield, or in the lawn, and i dig those and move them to better spots too, so I probably plant well over 100 trees if you consider the seeds and transplants..during the year..just can't help myself I am a total tree lover.

Paulo Bessa wrote:We have nuts, chestnuts, beans and moringa (haven't tried it yet). We have also grown tiger nuts (very tasty tubers from a grass).

I would like to grow pigeon peas (a legume but it is a subtropical crop), groundnut, mulberry (leaves very high in protein, fruit is tasty too).
I am also sprouting honey locust, siberian pea and mesquite pods (all legume trees), but I don't know how far edible those species are.

Can't remember any other perennial protein!
These are certainly some of the most productive ones.

How hardy is Moringa?

Such a wonderful list everyone has provided!

I started some Moringa trees this spring, so they are only 4 month old. I have one outdoors in Portugal and a few indoors in Iceland.

Haven't tested their hardiness yet but I know they stand frost once they are established (probably not when they are young!). Frost kills their foliage and even the entire aerial part, only to resprout again from their root ball (just below ground).

If ground freezes, then they will perish certainly. They are tropical plants, they like full sun, full warmth and dry soil

They grow well in Florida (resprouting after frosts); I know people that grown them in Europe but in greenhouse. I do not know how they behave in a Mediterranean climate, probably they can grow if frosts are small.

For sure they are hardy at zone 10, and with some care even zone 9. Zone 8 I don't think so! As I don't know anyone who has suceeded in that.

Steve Flanagan wrote:

Paulo Bessa wrote:We have nuts, chestnuts, beans and moringa (haven't tried it yet). We have also grown tiger nuts (very tasty tubers from a grass).

I would like to grow pigeon peas (a legume but it is a subtropical crop), groundnut, mulberry (leaves very high in protein, fruit is tasty too).
I am also sprouting honey locust, siberian pea and mesquite pods (all legume trees), but I don't know how far edible those species are.

Can't remember any other perennial protein!
These are certainly some of the most productive ones.

How hardy is Moringa?

Well, I am in zone 9a, but close to 8b. The coldest it got last winter was 27 F, although we had a warmer then average winter. Maybe someday I'll experiment with it. How is the flavor?

Is there a reason no one has mentioned nettles?

Nettles are a good source of protein? I have some nettle seeds, I am planning on planting them this fall or spring.

All the info I have read has suggested nettles are 40% protein.

Shawn Harper wrote:All the info I have read has suggested nettles are 40% protein.

Sweet!

Paulo Bessa wrote:Dark leafy greens are tasty but not a staple. Good crops but you can't live only from them.

Why would you want to live "only" on anything? Diversity is good not just in the forest, field and garden but also in our diet and our livestock's diet. I grow a wide variety of things both for ourselves to eat and for our animals to eat. In turn I eat the animals as they're able to digest thing we don't digest well and they make wonderful lipids and proteins from them.

Don't mono.

My end goal is to have the widest diversity of food plants possible.

Fruit and potatoes are generally high in protein. What you have to take into account is the water weight, availability of protein and general ease of digestion.

.some may take the rest of my life to produce a single nut..and then some may produce a small crop next year?  

BRAVO!  I remember a bit from Walden by H.D. Thoreau where he commented that there was a young farmer in his area who realized that an apple orchard would eventually be a real benefit to the farm.  The young man decided the payout was too far off and didn't plant the orchard because it would take years to become productive.  The young mans father, also living and working on the same farm thought maybe he should plant the orchard, but eventually he also decided that the payback was too far out and he wasn't getting any younger, so he also decided not to plant.  The young man's grandfather, also living on the same farm and, because of his age and infirmity more removed from most of the hard daily labor, decided he had nothing better to do and went and planted the orchard.  The grandfather lived long enough to eat apples from the orchard.  Thoreau doesn't expressly point out how the old man's work blessed his son and grandson, (and probably great grandkids, etc.), but the lesson is obvious.

A personal favorite story and it seems appropriate to share on this thread.