A List of Fruit & Vegetable Perennials
- Tomatoes are perennials in warm winter climates.Tomato plant image by Trombax from Fotolia.com
Perennials are plants, bushes, flowers or vegetables that live for several years. The plants may go dormant during the colder winter months but start to grow again when spring arrives. Usually perennials bloom once during the season and then set fruit, rather than blooming and producing all season long like annuals do. - Raspberries and blackberries grow on long canes that have sharp thorns, although a few thornless varieties have been bred. Both berries are fragile and easily damaged, so they are rather costly at the grocery when compared to strawberries and blueberries. All these fruits are perennials. Blueberries grow on bushes. Strawberries grow on plants that are only 12 inches high.
- Grapes are eaten fresh, made into juice, jelly and wine. The perennial grapevines grow to 20 to 30 feet but take well to pruning. The plants drop their leaves in fall and go dormant through the winter, even in warm-weather areas. New leaves appear in February in mild winter areas and in the spring where winters are colder.
- Cooks consider rhubarb a fruit, but it is a vegetable. Eat only the red stalks of this perennial and not any other part of the plant, since the leaves are toxic. Rhubarb is one of the few vegetables that grow in dense shade. Slice and cook with sugar and water for stewed rhubarb or bake in a pie.
- The stems of asparagus are edible. Once established, a bed will produce year after year, as long as it is not over-harvested the first few years. Harvest asparagus by cutting the stems at ground level when they are no more than 12 inches high. Steam and serve with lemon butter.
- The edible portion of the artichoke vegetable is the immature flower. The plant grows to 5 feet high with sharply lobed leaves from 1 to 5 feet long. The plant produces one main flowering stem and many smaller flowering stems. Harvest the large flowers while tightly budded. Boil the flower until the bottom is tender when pierced with a fork. Artichokes are eaten by scraping the flesh off the petal with your teeth. If you let artichokes bloom, the flowers are a clear, bright blue.
- Tomatoes are perennial in warm winter areas. Indeterminate tomatoes continue to grow, and the vine gets larger. Once the plant starts blooming, it will have green fruit, ripe fruit and flowers all at the same time. As long as it doesn't freeze, the plant will continue to produce, although production slows down during December and January while the days are short. Tomatoes are eaten raw and cooked.
