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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Encouraging "volunteer" crops in urban landscapes
  • Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 11:58:46 -0500

On 10/5/2010 10:26 PM, Keith Johnson wrote:

We don't have any "official" guerrilla gardening groups locally (that I know
of) but as a seed saver I find myself
thinking about all the things in my garden that could grow on their own, or
with little support, in wilder urban niches.
I have in mind a diversity of plants with multiple yields and the creation of
mixed seed / cutting collections of
locally adapted, low maintenance, often self-sowing, occasionally high
nutritional value, beneficial insect / bee /
butterfly attracting, colorful, fragrant, sometimes perennial, economically
valuable, nitrogen-fixing, wildlife food /
habitat, and mineral-accumulating types of plants that could also partially
self-employ those who establish / manage /
harvest them.

Maybe a tall order but doable, I think..

A few of the plants that would lend themselves to some neglect under
less-cared-for conditions in my local (going on
zone 7 [was zone 5 25 years ago]) list include (in no particular order)

amaranth,
magenta lamb's quarters,
cilantro,
dill,
carrot (especially the cosmic red and purples which bloom in rosy pinks and
are swarmed by beneficials),
walking or Egyptian onion,
leek,
chard,
lettuce,
radish,
ground cherry (Physalis spp.), tomatillo,
broom corn (Sorghum),
wheat,
long beans,
lablab beans (hyacinth bean),
sunflowers,
balsam impatiens (I grew them as understory in the asparagus and scattered
through the garden and they shaded out weedy
competition beautifully, butterflies and pollinators love them, simple and
effortless to weed),
cup plant (Sylphium),
indigo (Indigofera tinctoria [polygonaceae], I have white- and pink-flowered
types of this beautiful blue-dye plant that
self-sow in the greenhouse and outdoors);
the moschata branch of the cucurbits (solid stem, borer resistant) and
includes tromboncino, butternut and others;
orach (Chenopodium),
motherwort (careful, succeeds easily in poor soil),
celosias (very elegant, colorful and beneficial hosts),
garlic (plant cloves or bulbils),
field / winter / Austrian peas,
kale,
collards,
senna (short woody, N-fix, bee forage, yellow flowers for 1-2 months),
baptisia (blue, yellow and white varieties, perennial, N-fix),
Amorpha fruticosa ("false indigo", bee forage, fodder, mulch, N - highly
recommended),
cherry tomatoes,
buckwheat,
liatris,
hollyhocks,
zinnias,
marigolds,
hibiscus,
sweet potatoes,
stonefruit,
paw paws,
service berry (from seed and side shoots),
currant / gooseberry (from cuttings),
thornless blackberries and
che fruit (melon berry / Chinese mulberry, fig / mulberry family, can be
grafted onto wild Osage orange [Maclura]).
Apples could be grafted onto crab apples and hawthornes, pears on to
ornamental pears.

What would your local lists look like?
------------------------------------------------------------------------

purple vetch

naturally hybridized wild mustard/turnip greens (interbreeds with other
greens, especially chinese varieties)
these get better as they mix with other varieties, are long standing and
overwinter - very nutritious crop

foxtail millet
wild amaranth
(bird food)

lambs quarters - excellent salad ingredient

persimmons
eleagnus (fruiting)
black cherry
wild plum

wild strawberry

greater burdock

dandelion - excellent salad ingredient




  • Re: [permaculture] Encouraging "volunteer" crops in urban landscapes, Lawrence F. London, Jr., 11/15/2010

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