If the recent floods have taught us anything it’s that having backyard produce is a wonderful thing. The catch is that growing your own food isn’t always as easy, particularly for those of us with jobs, kids and busy lives. That’s where Brisbane Edible Gardening comes in.

Let’s start with salad greens. Whether you live in a townhouse or on acreage, these five edible perennials are essential low maintenance, reliable and nutritious plants. Best of all as perennials they are long lived so rather than having to plant then seasonally, you plant them once and they produce for years to come!

#1 Sambung

Sambung is an extremely hardy and low maintenance perennial plant to 70cm. It will tolerate a range of growing conditions from boggy clays to sands and poor soils, producing a reliable leaf crop year-round in full sun to part shade.

Sambung Nyawa (Gynura procumbens)

#2 Okinawa Spinach

Okinawa Spinach (Gynura bicolor)

#3 Sweet Potato

Sweet Potato – Kumara (Ipomoea batatas)

#4 Lebanese Cress (Aethionema cordifolium)

Lebanese Cress (Aethionema cordifolium)

#5 Brazilian Spinach

Brazilian Spinach (Alternanthera sissoo)

All of these plants have been thoroughly tested in our Food Plant Solutions, experimental garden in Mount Crosby, west of Brisbane. They can tolerate heavy rain, poor soils, cold snaps, dry spells and heat waves (requiring watering only on the hottest of hot days). If they can survive on the hot dry hill that the Mount Crosby garden then they will thrive in any other Brisbane Garden.

Note: Sambung and Okinawa Spinach are host plants for butterflies. In autumn caterpillars of this species can much your plants but in most cases these plants are so vigorous that they will bounce back quickly in winter after the caterpillars have finished and you will be rewarded with beautiful butterflies. If, however, you can’t spare any green leaves for the caterpillars, then a regular light spray with molasses mix will keep them at bay (1 tbs molasses, 1 tbs Seasol, 1 litre water, mix and spray on fresh solution i.e. less than a day between mixing and applying).