All around our yard in the summertime are these lovely wild daylilies that remind me of very delicate irises. There are a number of different colors and they seem to grow quite easily since they are coming up all over. I tracked them down in a plant guide one year so I know that they are daylilies, a flower that is native to Asia where they are often eaten! The buds are supposed to be especially good, sauteed in a little oil with garlic or salt and the bulbs are eaten like fingerling potatoes. Every year I think I will try eating some of the many day lilies that thrive in our yard but then I get busy and they start to bloom and look so lovely that I hate to pick the buds before they bloom. This year I am determined.
Since the daylily plants grow well everywhere in the yard, or so it seems, I am trying to cultivate a daylily patch that will be especially for eating. Today I transplanted several large clumps of day lilies into a garden bed that is near the house and the kitchen garden. I moved them away from the sunchoke plot since the day lilies seem to be crowding in and we do like to eat sunchokes. I hope that the chickens will leave the daylilies alone since they don't seem to nibble on them when they are out in the yard growing, but anything I cultivate to eat seems to intrigue the chickens! They do like to jump around and get under foot when I am digging or planting so there were a few very chaotic moments when I was transplanting. Now however, I am hopeful that they will just see the daylilies as an ordinary part of the yard and leave them alone. (I tried this a couple years ago but the clumps I moved were kind of small so the chickens were able to trample them down searching for bugs in the newly turned soil. I am keeping my fingers crossed this time.) You can see Princess eyeing the newly transplanted daylilies.
When I first began gardening in earnest I really liked the idea of perennial edible plants, especially ones that were native or served a duel purpose like flowers and food or medicinal herbs, but I was not sure how practical or realistic that was in spite of encouragement from my permaculture trained friends. Now however there are many edible plants growing pretty well. The little horseradish transplant that my friend gave me is thriving in two locations in the yard and I had some to eat just today! There are three different kinds of raspberries growing which provide as many berries as we can eat. The break from the usual rainy weather gave my husband and I a chance to get them trimmed and tied up, a task that we sometimes can't get to until the berries are spilling all over. Then there is the patch of sunchokes which we dig up and eat throughout the winter and some burdock as well. The asparagus and artichokes we planted have never done very well. We get a few small asparagus spears to eat but the artichokes I just let bloom since they are too few and too small to eat. The artichoke flowers are beautiful and rare enough that people stop when the flowers are in bloom and ask me what they are.
There are also lots of herbs that come up year after year; rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, lemon balm, and peppermint among others. We also have Oregon Grape, kale in a couple of varieties, some Echinacea that we have yet to harvest, French sorrel that is yummy early in the season before lettuce is available and several fruit trees; apples, plums, figs and a grape arbor. It is really gratifying that there are so many perennials growing and producing. We don't have a big yard... just a standard double lot that has been cultivated with care.
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