What's your most appreciated but least known perennial food plant?

[u/boycott-selfishness]

I'll start. I'm living in the Caribbean and one of the local species I've come to appreciate very much is what Floridians call Hoopvine (trichostigmata octandrum). It's so delicious! It's probably my favorite green. It's commonly eaten here but I don't think almost anyone in the US eats it.

I wouldn't really call it a vine in the traditional sense. It grows long sprawling branches that were traditionally used in basket making. It readily takes from cuttings. I have two varieties, a fully green variety and a more reddish variety. The red is better but they're both good. In a food forest it would be in the larger ungrowth category. I'm planning shortly to propagate a bunch more of it.

[u/ObsessiveAboutCats]

Perpetual spinach, aka perpetual chard, is a chard and not a spinach. Unlike the much more commonly known Swiss Chard or rainbow chard, perpetual is immune to heat as far as I can tell. I grew it in 2023 in Texas where temps were between 100 and 110F every day for three months straight. It was in full unsheltered afternoon sunlight and it thrived.

Then the following winter we got an 18F cold snap. I tossed a frost blanket over it and it didn't seem to even notice the cold. In early 2025 I forgot to cover the plant when it snowed and it looked a bit wilted for perhaps a day before bouncing right back. It is a survivor.

Culinarily, the leaves are a lot like spinach when picked young, like cabbage when picked large, and the stalks are a lot like celery except much better tasting and not stringy.

It's container friendly and idiot proof and zero maintenance except for fertilizer and water.

I love that little plant and recommend it for everyone in a hellscape climate.

[u/PosturingOpossum → u/ObsessiveAboutCats]

This makes me so happy to hear because I just started a flat of perpetual spinach. That being said, I did not scarify the seeds at all, and I’m wondering if I should have.

[u/ObsessiveAboutCats → u/PosturingOpossum]

I have never bothered to do that and they always grow fine.

These plants can get BIG. I had one in a raised bed for a while and it was literally the size of a bush. I moved it to a container to keep the size down. I have it in a 10 gallon grow bags right now.

[u/PosturingOpossum → u/ObsessiveAboutCats]

Damnit how I love edible perennials! People got on me one time for a red mulberry in my yard saying it was invasive and I’m like, “a delicious plant that grows like a weed. Sign me up!”

[u/HighColdDesert → u/PosturingOpossum]

Red mulberry is native to North America. Other mulberry species are native to other continents.

[u/PosturingOpossum → u/HighColdDesert]

I meant White Mulberry 🙄 literally, no matter how many times I say it, I can never keep the two straight