Garden ideas? Perennial Ideas?

Hi y'all,

 You've heard from me a couple times before. Nothing major, but I'm always lurking.

 I'm looking for some new ideas for perennial food crops I can add to my mix. We moved less than six months ago to a brand new climate and region - semi-arid, intense, red, sand (with the slightest dash of clay), Landscape dominated by grass and thorns with trees (sorry, I meant thorny trees). Lots of rain during the rainy season, from what I'm told (Circa 500-600mm), but really, really dry during the Fall and Winter months, as well as the first two-ish months of Spring.

We have a well, but it's not been a super producer thus far. After around 6 weeks of careful water saving, we've managed to accumulate roughly 2,000L.

Now, we've just built our first hugelkultur, and we're experimenting a little with small pits, and heavy mulching. But, I don't really want to spend another six months working incredibly hard for little tangible reward. I'd love to get more perennials going, and more gardens that become semi-self-sustaining.

I know y'all are the superpeople of permaculture, so I'd love to hear your ideas. Particularly for planting styles that might work well, and perennials. I have a couple of cardoon, artichoke, and Roselle plants. And, planning on putting in some ginger, turmeric, and asparagus (the darn cat ate the first lot 🤣). I really like unusual vegetables and plants, so lay them on me!!!

Thanks in advance.

Johanan, you have come to the right place to learn about perennial vegetables as we have a whole forum devoted to the perennial vegetable:

https://permies.com/f/384/perennial-vegetables

Here are some threads of interest to you or others:

https://permies.com/t/187693/perennial-vegetables/Perennial-plants-produce-year

https://permies.com/t/96921/perennial-vegetables/Planting-Perennial-Vegetables-Homestead

https://permies.com/t/146484/perennial-vegetables/Perennial-veggies-beginner-start

https://permies.com/t/187819/perennial-vegetables/spreadsheet-species-perennial-vegetables-nutrient

I am looking forward to what everyone's favorite perennial vegetables are.

Hi Johanan,
I'm still fairly new to perennial gardening myself, but I wanted to encourage you to focus on perennials that grow naturally in your climate. Too often, I push the limits of my climate and try to grow things that are not designed to grow here... and it either causes lots of frustration or lots of work or both.

Hi Johanan,
I would second what Matt said about growing what does well in your area. What were the native peoples' food plants? It would probably help people a bit to make helpful suggestions if you were to give an idea of your climate zone - how cold in winter, how hot in summer? I'm afraid my suggestions from personal experience would be not very much use, since my climate is almost constant moisture!

Thanks @Matt. We have a couple of native options but they're far from exhaustive. Things like Bambara nuts/tiger nuts, Etc.

But, it's a rather limited niche, to be frank. I don't mind doing the experimentation, to try different places.

@Nancy, Our highs are around 52 degrees Celcius (That's heat-wave conditions, they tell me). The coldest we got this year was around negative 4.

Thank you so much, Anne!

Anne Miller wrote:Johanan, you have come to the right place to learn about perennial vegetables as we have a whole forum devoted to the perennial vegetable:

https://permies.com/f/384/perennial-vegetables

Here are some threads of interest to you or others:

https://permies.com/t/187693/perennial-vegetables/Perennial-plants-produce-year

https://permies.com/t/96921/perennial-vegetables/Planting-Perennial-Vegetables-Homestead

https://permies.com/t/146484/perennial-vegetables/Perennial-veggies-beginner-start

https://permies.com/t/187819/perennial-vegetables/spreadsheet-species-perennial-vegetables-nutrient

I am looking forward to what everyone's favorite perennial vegetables are.

I really like the Plants for a Future database search for finding plants for a particular use/situation.

I did a search for oustanding edibility, zone 9, withstands drought and it came up with:

Nodding onion
Cashew
Pineapple
cherimoya
sea orach (saltbush)
white sapote (mexican apple)
perennial quinoa
arnold hawthorn (and three other hawthorns)
broad leaved oleaster, goumi and a couple of other elaeagnus)
fennel
shallon
sunflower
avocado
date palm
golden bamboo
guava
shrubby blackberry
chilian guava

(edit note: not all these are perennial - you can search for tree/ perennial climber etc. I just did all plants)

If you were prepared to consider lower rating edibility then there are far more to consider. They give asparagus only 4 stars for edibility for example (not sure what zone that's good for and I think it would need more moisture, just saying it's good eating!). I'm not quite sure how the rating works, but I think they give a higher score for higher nutritional value than bulk.