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Establishing Annual Vegetables As Native To Your Property.

 
gardener
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I have mustard greens every where on my two properties, and its amazing.
They are at least 3 generations in and still tasty ,plus they are incredibly hardy, staying green over winter  through more than a foot of snow.
I want more plants like this, plants I can introduce, spread and preferentially weed for, until they are endemic to my yard and yarden.
So far I've planted spoiled potatoes in raised beds full of leaves, even though we don't eat much in the way of potatoes, and I'm planning on adding garlic and onions, which I will leave to go to "seed".
The new "lawn" I seeded has lots of buckwheat in it, and the day lily's are already well established.
There are plenty of tomatoes coming up, but they are tiny yet

What annual vegetable have you made into "native" species on your property?
 
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Location: Branson, MO
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These are herbs, not vegetables, but cilantro, dill, and borage have been very good for us in this regard—we let them go to seed and now have self-perpetuating populations. I don't appear to have maintained my arugula population, but it self-seeds quite well also.

As you note, tomatoes can be good for naturalizing on your property. So are their relatives, ground cherries.
 
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This!
I just can't be doing with annuals at all outside - all that digging and sowing and weeding.  The only usual exception is peas.  However I do have a nice annual polyculture in the polytunnel establishing: mostly salady leaves: fat hen, chickweed and claytonia all come up quite happily whenever the soil is disturbed and watered.  I also have kale, leef beet and buckwheat all seeding around happily in there.
I do have some fodder radish that comes of it's own accord outside in various places.  I bought it as a green manure, however it has really tasty seed pods, so I let it go to seed and am encouraging it to spread.  I am a little worried about the possibility of disease though: I have a pretty acidic soil, so clubroot could be a problem if I get that here.
 
pollinator
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Greens, dill, mustard, cilantro, radishes, arugula. They all reseed themselves with abandon. Spinach, potatoes, and lettuce grow in spring in my dry garden area, then seed and die back when it gets hot. I've also started a population of most (minus the potatoes) in a shady area where I think they'll do better long term. I have a "dry" collard population that has never been watered and still manages to grow and seed. Black solanum (schwarzenbeeren) is naturalized. I'm hoping to add cumin and black cumin to the lineup, but I'm not sure how they'll take to my environment. Black cumin did fine but I gathered the seeds rather than letting them fall.

I tried naturalizing a bunch of other stuff (kale, wheat, rye, watermelons, wildflowers), but failures are common. That being the case, I prefer to grow whatever it is a few years and get a strong seed stock before I try naturalizing.
 
gardener
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I haven't purposely established any particular species, but my collard greens pop up like weeds all over.

This year I have at least 5 volunteer tomatoes setting fruit. I think one is a yellow pear variety, and the other is some weird daughter of a Better Boy. I've decided to let it be my new fun experiment.

Some of last year's missed sweet potatoes have taken over part of this year's garden. I'm letting them go where ever they want.  I have a few volunteer Irish potatoes (probably Red Norland?) that I hope to get a least a meal's worth.
 
William Bronson
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Oh boy, lots of stuff to try!
Hey,I sowed winter rye into the new "lawn" a month ago, on a lark, does it have food value?
 
Lauren Ritz
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It's a grain, used for animal feed and such, so yes it does have food value. It comes up looking like an ornamental clumping grass.

The wheat lasted a few years and then died out. Probably too dry. The oats do great, but I kept pulling them out thinking they were a weed. They look very much like quackgrass in the juvenile stage.
 
pollinator
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Another vote for radishes. The roots don't develop in my soil, but I use the greens in everything and dry them for winter use, too. And the seed pods are a nice vegetable. I also rip out huge amounts of the big plants and use them to mulch other stuff, especially my potatoes.

Speaking of potatoes, I've had potatoes coming up every year in a garden I haven't planted them in for four years now.

Corn salad/lamb's lettuce/mache has spread itself everywhere. It comes up in some very surprising, inhospitable places. I like it cause produces so early and the leaves taste nice even after it flowers.

Another very early green I eat quite a bit of is pansy and viola leaves. They're taking over my garden as well.  This year I've decided to start selecting a bit for larger leaves. It's hard to cull any, though!

Dry peas reseed themselves somewhat in my garden. I grow them for the peas and the greens. I don't leave a lot of them unharvested, so they might be more successful at reseeding than I think.

Rye is a hulless grain, very easy to thresh, and impossible to mess up as far as I can tell, so I grow it every year. We mostly use it in grain salad.

 
William Bronson
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I have totally loved tillage radishes for the greens and the pods.
The roots tend to be too hot, even when roasted, and not actually good at tillage, growing up out of the ground rather down into it.
They were spreading in my yard ,but mustard greens seem to have supplanted them.
I should sow some more!
I bet any of the root/greens plants, like beets, turnips,   mangles/rutabaga, etc .could become a native plant.

Self seeding peas would be pretty sweet...peas!
The only peas I've had luck with in the past have been Austrian winter peas.
I always seem to miss my windows for growing them,   self sowing varietals would fix that!

I'm told runner beans are hardy perennials that lose productivity over time, but if we concentrate on eating the leaves and let them self sow, that wouldn't be an issue.

I'm not crazy about leeks as a food, but I think they might be good for the plants around them and attract  good insects.

A weird one I want is hardy banana.
The leaves for wrapping food , the fruit for the chickens, or just as green manure.
The banana pups to give to my Latin X neighbors
 
Nancy Reading
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I'm told runner beans are hardy perennials that lose productivity over time, but if we concentrate on eating the leaves and let them self sow, that wouldn't be an issue.



You learn something new every day!  I'd never heard before that runner bean leaves are edible.  I guess slugs like them and that often a good sign of something being tasty.

I'd forgotten a few other things that seed around here:  salsify comes up (especially in the paths for some reason!) Sweet cicely (Myrris odorata) and Good King Henry are sort of native anyway, although I introduced them both and I have other wild plants that I use to some extent (like sheep sorrel and pignut(Conopodium majus)).  I have potatoes in the 'lawn' and the fruit garden and I've not planted any potatoes there myself in 8 years or more. These have probably regrown from tubers, which I gather shouldn't be encouraged generally since they will accumulate disease.
I have let parsnip go to seed and that gave me the best germination I've ever had - self sown.  They did then disappear: smothered by docken I think.  According to Carol Deppe's 'Breed your own Vegetable varieties' book Parsnip is one of those plants you need a big population for, and I've not tried to repeat the experiment. Carrot go to seed, but I collected them, rather than let them seed around (although I think they did to some extent)

I suspect the problem with tasty seeds like peas and beans is that other critters also to eat them before they get a chance to regrow.  Since they store and grow away in the spring here that is a safer form of propagation.
 
pollinator
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I have a tomato that self-sows pretty aggressively, and a garlic patch that is doing better after a few years of neglect than it ever did with me tending it.
 
William Bronson
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The front bed has three perrinials planted in it plus these mustard greens.
Soon I will "harvest" these by shaking whole plants out over beds and planters that show bare soil.
The greens will be going into the dehydrator/ hung up to dry.
20210624_194028.jpg
Mustard Greens Gone To Seed
Mustard Greens Gone To Seed
 
pollinator
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Do you ever use the mustard seeds as seasoning or for condiments?
 
William Bronson
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Ok, confession time.
Sometimes I plant things and forget about them, yet they thrive.
I think this might be such a thing, but I'm not sure.
Does this look familiar to anyone?
20210624_193955.jpg
 Red veined leaves seem out of place
Red veined leaves seem out of place
 
William Bronson
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Not yet, but the kid was talking about it, so we might!
 
Lauren Ritz
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Beets, maybe, or rhubarb. Possibly Knotweed? All have red veined green leaves.
 
gardener
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Or maybe sorrel? There's a red-veined sorrel. I grew it but found the leaves unpleasantly sour so I got rid of it.
 
pollinator
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I second Rebecca's ID. Looks like red veined sorrel. You can use it like regular sorrel.
 
William Bronson
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Sorrel, yeah that seems like something I would  plant!
It looks right,  and it tasted bitter, which evidently yo be expected if the leaves are older and uncooked.
It's going to seed , so it's liable spread

 
Stacy Witscher
pollinator
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Sorrel can be pureed and made into a pesto type thing. I mix that with yogurt or sour cream and coat a side of fish with it for baking. Very nice.
 
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Red vined sorrel. I have both regular sorrel and red vine sorrel. Both are perennials, not annuals.
 
Arthur Hau
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Daikon radish. It produces a ton of seeds and seed pods (edible). I allow it to selfseed and I sow its seeds everywhere. It grows everywhere like a weeds in my property. It is an annual. If you don't harvest it, either the root or the leaves or the stems, it will die back and provide a lot of organic matter to your property.
 
William Bronson
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I just tried a  real daikon for the first time,  it was wonderful,  very low in heat and actually a little sweet!
In the past I've grown tillage radishes, not selected for taste at all, and generally too hot to enjoy.
Only true daikons from now on!
 
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Purslane grow here wherever we plant it, and as long as we dont take out the roots, it grows again in spring.
 
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