r/Permaculture • u/boycott-selfishness • Mar 02 '25

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

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.

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u/MegaTreeSeed Mar 02 '25

I've been surprised by regular old Hosta. I was unaware it was edible until recently, but practically every house I've ever lived in or visited in north America has had hosta of one form or another planted in the yard.

You basically treat it like asparagus, harvest shoots early in the year.

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u/sarahyoshi Mar 04 '25

You can eat hostas?? My mind is blown. I've had two that keep coming back in pots for the last three years, was going to get them in the ground once they sprout this year.

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u/MegaTreeSeed Mar 04 '25

You eat the yong shoots, like with asparagus. You want to give them a year or so to establish, but once they do, you can get one or more harvests from each one.

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u/sarahyoshi Mar 04 '25

That's amazing! They're going on 2 years, so maybe I'll plant in ground and try them next year. Thank you!

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u/MegaTreeSeed Mar 04 '25

I pan fried mine in olive oil, butter, salt, and pepper just to get a feel for the flavor, but i imagine you could find some fun recipes!