How to Create a Lush Edible Landscape by Wiling Your Greens

When people think of greens, it can be limiting. So, before we start wilding greens in the landscape, let’s just think about what “greens” means.

Greens aren’t summed up as salad greens, the mesclun mix and arugula and baby spinach we’ve come to expect. They stretch beyond the lesser recognized salad additions like radicchio, endive, and escarole. They are not just iceberg or romaine.

Greens don’t just stop at collard greens. We, of course, have kale and chard. Mustard greens, turnips greens, and bok choy are on the menu, too. We also have stuff like broccoli raab and sorrel, and we have wild greens like dandelions and nettles.

Then, there are greens from plants that aren’t necessarily known for greens. Garlic and ramps have delicious greens, as do chives. Wild plants like lamb’s quarters and chickweed have delicious greens. Sweet potato greens are delicious, as are the greens of many hibiscus plants.

In other words, a landscape full of edible greens can be colorful, versatile, and amazingly productive. And, we can plant this as a wild, self-sustaining landscape.

Source: monalogue/YouTube

Planting Perennials

As with any edible landscape, finding perennials is a crucial piece of the puzzle. We want to include plenty of plants that come back year after year because, then, we can simply let them grow without all the fuss of seedlings and sowing every spring.

There are abundant flavorful options for putting perennial greens in the mix.

• Lots of alliums (the onion family) are perennials, including wild leeks, ramps, chives, Welsh onions, and walking onions.
• Other choices are specific versions of greens we know well: Turkish rocket and wild rocket are perennial arugulas. Tree collards are as the name suggests. Sea kale and sea beets (wild chard) are wild versions of greens we love.
• Getting wild with “greens” also puts unusual choices in the mix. We can allow “weeds” to grow so that we have plenty of dandelions, wild sorrel, sweet violets, chickweed, chicory, and the list just goes on forever.
• Lastly, we can plant trees with edible leaves. Many (not all) hibiscus plants are great for this. Linden trees have wonderful young leaves for salads. Mulberry leaves can be cooked and used for stuffed dishes, a la grape leaves. Moringa trees are fantastic for those in warmer climates. That’s just getting started.

Getting some perennial greens going in the landscape is a great start, but it doesn’t have to stop there.

Source: MIgardener/YouTube

Self-Sowing Annuals

Because annual greens tend to get bitter when the plants’ flower, many gardeners call it a day and pull the plants up for the compost heap. But, what if that isn’t what we did? What if we let those plants flower, go to seed, and drop those seeds everywhere? Well, we’d have wild greens!

• Most lettuces are extremely adept at seeding themselves for the next growing season. It’s just a matter of letting the plants complete their growth cycle. When they’ve produced seed pods and those have dried out, knock the plants around a bit so that they plant the next crop. Do this, and they will show up all over a mulch garden.
• The same can be said for popular cooking greens like collards and mustard greens. They’ll grow up, produce seeds, and plant themselves for the following year. It’s just a matter of letting them do it. All the gardener has to do is create a welcoming environment and step back to let nature take its course.

The idea behind “wilding greens” is to let them behave like wild plants. Annual plants want to grow up, flower, produce seeds, and plant themselves again. It requires a bit of tolerating dying plants, but it means free food year and year.

The Big Tip for Wild Greens

The big tip for wilding greens is to create an environment for them to thrive. At first, this can mean creating a large, mulched space where the greens won’t get outcompeted by grasses and other native plants. After a year or two, the easy-to-grow greens (different for different climates) will establish themselves, and they’ll start to grow like weeds. Delicious weeds!

A lawn of wild edible greens will provide more salads and greens than a family can eat. That’s a problem worth having. Restrict the greens to growing where you want them by mowing the areas where you don’t want them and enjoy the bounty where they have become “wild”.

Related Content:

• What You Need to Know About Eating Greens
• Food for Free: Foraging for Spring Greens
• How to Grow Greens Indoors All Winter Long
• A Guide to Dehydrating Your Summertime Herbs and Greens
• 10 Materials That Can Be Repurposed for Landscaping