From the archive
6 Sep 2026
Katy Willis is still cutting asparagus from crowns that were in the ground before her children were born. The rhubarb, too, has outlasted the kids' childhoods. Both went into her soil once, as crowns, and neither has needed a packet of seed since. She writes that all twelve of the foods on her list are growing in her garden right now.
The twelve share the same logic: they are perennial vegetables and fruits rather than annuals, so the spring round of digging, sowing and replanting does not apply to them. The full dozen sit behind a continuation link we could not open, but the principle does not need the complete list to be understood. Asparagus and rhubarb are the named examples, and they are the oldest residents in her garden.
The cost of this arrangement comes first, not last. Willis is plain that most of these crops give nothing worth picking for their first year or two in the ground. Once established, though, the relationship inverts: the plants carry on producing for ten years at the low end, twenty, thirty, and in some cases fifty by her reckoning, while asking very little of the gardener in return. The bed stays undisturbed and the April seed order gets shorter.
This is not a grand scheme or a funded project. It is one garden, planted patiently, on the way toward the goal Willis sets out: a garden that feeds you. We should be plain about what we can and cannot vouch for. The fetched text is only the opening of the piece, cut off at a continuation link, so the approach, the waiting period and the two named crowns are verifiable, while the identity and performance of the remaining ten foods are not.
Plant perennial food crops as crowns rather than seed and leave the bed alone. Expect a year or two with no proper harvest while the plants establish - that wait is the whole cost. After it, they crop for a decade or more with almost no digging, no replanting and no annual seed order.
Regeneration International · Read the source