My thoughts exactly. I’ve been doing a combo of gardens for about 50 years. I’ve always liked having fresh tomatoes, okra, peppers, squash, onions, garlic, lettuce, and berries along with the peaches and apples. Then we joined the Nashville Rose Society and now we’re taking care of 52 (so far) roses. I’ve learned a lot from becoming a Rosarian that crosses into my veg garden. We use lots of organic techniques especially the beneficial insects, herbs, and the nematodes along with neem oil and peppermint Castile soap and castor oil(for the voles). Weeding is my least favorite activity in the garden; but it’s essential to getting the best production. We use organic fertilizers and lots of compost and worm castings all of which the weeds really love. I just finished pouring a heap of fish emulsion with kelp into our garden today and it took most of the day because as I went along I was pulling weeds and pouring the fertilizer. My goodness, the garden looks really good right now.
I switched my greenhouse to fruit (perennial) no point in taking up valuable warm space with an annual I can grow outside and harvest in our short growing season. Also, perennials are usually far more expensive to buy in the grocery store.
I want to grow it all, but I don’t have much patience for plants that can’t take care of themselves and produce a yield.
This years annuals are spring potatoes, sweet potatoes and garlic and bulking up the seeds for a variety of purple corn
Plant in fall
Plant in spring
Plant in summer
Waiting for my fruit, nut, trees/ shrubs to become productive while creating more openings in the sod for next years seedlings.
This years seedlings were Goumi, Jujube, Aronia, Medlar, hazelnut
Moving clumps of ditch lilies, transplanting hostas, asparagus.
It all feels like a big cycle getting to where it is complementing and supporting each other not so much annual vs perennial veg vs woody perennials it all has a place and I want to grow it all.
Perennials all the way for me now. The moment you have a few fruit trees and berry bushes established, you stop thinking about gardening as a project and start thinking of it as tending something that tends itself back. Annuals are fine but the setup cost never goes away.
I am going to make my own catagory and say pseudo-annuals are my favorite; plants that some years overwinter and some years don’t. Peppers, pigeon peas, sweet potatoes, eggplants, collards; it is so satisfying to get these into year 2 successfully and watch how more they produce. But its equally as nice to be able to start them from seed and reep the reward within a season.
Runner-up goes to perennial leafy greens and herbs. The plants that are just always available year round, no ripening time, no flowers that need to be set. Just some scissors and a basket. The instant gratification of leafy greens with the stability of a fruit tree. Just a win-win.