Planting Wild Native Vegetables

300 wild native vegetables just showed up on my door! These plants are destined for my food forest and a few other areas on my wild homestead including my kitchen garden. Got a lot of planting to do this weekend!

I have written about wild native vegetables before on my blog and here on STEEM but I wanted to mention them again since they are so often ignored in gardening circles and even in permaculture circles.

So what are wild native vegetables?

These are plants that are native to a specific area that are not just edible but can be used as replacements for traditional vegetables.

Most of them are also perennial meaning they come back year after year.

As perennial vegetables these wild native vegetables provide a lot of great benefits. They minimize the need for tilling, watering, and regular inputs. Planting perennial vegetables helps to mimic the natural system where annuals are generally not that common.

So why not just plant any perennial vegetables? Why plant the native ones--the ones I call wild native vegetables?

Support More Wildlife

There are a couple core reasons for planting wild native vegetables. First, as native plants these plants support specialist insects that rely on just a handful (and sometimes even just 1) plants for their survival.

This is basically what the situation is with monarchs and milkweed.

Non-native plants just can't support this group of picky, specialist insects. Without a healthy diversity of native plants you are going to have far less insects on your homestead. With less insects you are also going to have less birds and other wildlife.

The result will be a weaker and less resilient system compared to a natural ecosystem.

But luckily there are a ton of fantastic wild native vegetables out there. You just have to learn about the ones in your area. This takes some time and research but the results are great.

Support Ecosystem and Human Health

Native wild vegetables also diversify your food and make your food take on a regional feel. I can make a salad made up of a mix of native wild vegetables that will be unique to my area. Someone in New England will have a similar but different salad made up of some of the same greens but many that are different.

This diversity of plant based food will also likely be beneficial for human health due to each type of wild native vegetable having its own unique makeup of nutrients.

I have gotten frustrated when I read permaculture books from Europe, from New England, from my area, and from other temperate regions and see the same plants recommended over and over again.

While these books are often fantastic and I happily own several of them this part is frustrating to me. It's not that these plants are bad to recommend. I more frustrated at the plants not included in the books.

A food forest or garden grown in each of these places should be similar due to the similar climates but they should also be unique with plants that are specialized to each separate region.

This is where native edibles and especially wild native vegetables come in. Plus, native nitrogen fixers and other native plants that can help support your other plants.

Grow Native Wild Vegetables and Non-Native Edibles -- Grow a Diversity of Plants

To be clear I'm also growing regular vegetables, fruit trees, berries, etc. All the types of plants you will find in most gardening books and permaculture books. But I'm also growing hundreds of native edibles including native wild vegetables.

These plants represent a lost part of our ecosystem and of each of our regions food cultures. I want to see a diversity of ecosystems and a diversity of food cultures.

Growing native wild vegetables means that my wild homestead will truly be a part of my local regional ecosystem. It also means my wild homestead will be much more diverse in terms of plants and wildlife then if I had left out the native wild vegetables.

So by all means please plant the fruit trees, berries, and the traditional annual and perennial vegetables. These are great food plants that I will never tell someone not to grow. But also don't forget about all the native wild vegetables and other native edibles growing wild in your area.

These plants are what will truly make your homestead a wild homestead.

Thank you!

PS: If you are curious here are the wild native vegetables I'm currently growing:

1. Pacific Waterleaf
2. Miners Lettuce
3. Oregon Stonecrop
4. Dwarf Checkermallow - Can be used just like Henderson Checkermallow.
5. Henderson Checkermallow
6. Early Blue Violet
7. Deltoid Balasmroot
8. Nodding Onion
9. Hooker's Onion

I hope to add more in the future! This list does not include the native berries and other native edibles I'm also growing. Later on I will be growing plants like Wapato and other fantastic staple crop plants that are also native. These staple crops could one day provide a signifant amount of calories to mine and my family's diet.

When you start exploring these plants and learning what resources exist for your area you will be surprised how many native wild vegetables there really are.

Good luck and please consider adding native wild vegetables to your gardens and food forests!

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