Making the Most of Your Greens

One thing that makes many greens such a joy to grow is the fact that some of them are "cut-and-come-again" vegetables. These are plants that can be harvested several times over the growing season. In this article, I'll discuss a number of great cut-and-come-again plants and how I maintain perpetual harvests from them.

These Parris Island Cos romaine plants are too close together. A salad or two should create some much-needed space between these plants.

The summer has arrived, and from this point of the year onward, as the old George Gershwin song goes, “the living is easy” — at least in terms of keeping a permaculture garden. From now on, most days I only go to my 2,500-square-foot permaculture

garden for about 15 minutes a day at most, and 90 per cent of my time in the garden is spent gathering food. One way that I ensure that things will be easy is to plant a good number of cut-and-come-again greens.

How to “cut and come again”

When harvesting from cut-and-come-again greens, the idea is to mimic animal-grazing behavior by taking small amounts from each plant until you have enough for a meal.