What is the most nutrient-dense, "come again" garden plant?

I ate beet greens all last summer, and in the fall and winter I ate the beets.

While there are next to no calories in beet greens, it gave good salads and the beet roots got huge!

Vitamins, protein and fat? I'd say seeds and/or nuts.

I was going to suggest purple hull peas. We grew them for the first time this year and the return has been phenomenal. While we had to water everything else, we never watered them and they never slowed down. Plants literally covered with beautiful pods, each containing 16 fat peas. I've put gallons of shelled peas in the freezer already, given several lbs away to family/friends, filled 2 qt jars w/ seed for next year and the plants are still making, although they are beginning to decline now.

Other than okra, they're they best crop we've ever grown!!

I guess I need more peas!

How do sweet potatoes do in your area? They're the most nutrient-dense vegetable out there, and the greens are edible. I've never tried them, so I can't comment on what they taste like. If you eat too many of the greens off of a plant, it's going to impact tuber production some, but the vines do grow like crazy. A little munching won't do a lot of damage.

They supposedly do very well, but I couldn't find any vines for sale this spring. I may have to order some next year to get started with good stock.

You can also eat the leaves - cooked or in a green salad.

I'll add beet greens to the list.

Well, the two years I've tried broccoli here it hasn't gone well. The heat keeled them over like they'd been steamed. I might try some in the winter garden though. They're supposed to be pretty cold hardy.

They were also a poor person's house plant when I was a kid. Mom always had 2 or 3 growing around the house. She just put one sweet potato in a jar and covered it halfway with water then set it in a window. Sometimes she stuck a toothpick in opposite sides and used those to suspend it in a jar from the top and added water until the potato was half covered. Those vines were very long and she had them trained all around the kitchen.

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How about egg plant? I always enjoyed eggplant as a kid and always enjoyed when the season ended, as my mom only ever cooked it one way, breaded and fried. Since discovering the joys of baba ganoush I can't grow enough. Baba ganoush freezes well and you can enjoy it all year long. The trouble with eggplant here is the short growing season. I usually just get one good crop and then we get a hard freeze and they are done.

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Libertarindependent

We are big on kale, siberian and black/tuscan varieties. They produce all summer in up to 100 heat, but love the cooler temps. Growth slows down in the winter, but still goes under plastic except for January and Feb here (lows in high 20's). In March it starts growing again, giving you spring kale before it flowers right about the time the new plants are coming in. The different kales have different textures and flavor.

Can you grow avocado's in your climate?

I don't think eggplant has much in the way of nutrition. Not from what I've read about it. It sure is tasty though ... especially as a vehicle to transport tomato sauce and melted mozzarella into your mouth.

Avocados and citrus just can't handle our winters. The folks who have tried around here say that they can survive 2-3 years and then we'll get a 20 degree frost that'll kill them dead. Almonds and pecans do ok and I've been working on getting some of those going.

Jerusalem artichoke, the ones that look like tall sunflowers but with a teeny yellow flowerhead? They multiply like crazy here, and apparently the tubers are edible.
Don't know how they taste though.

They're pretty tasty. Like a grainy, starchy potato. I chop them up very fine and drop them into soups where they break down more and become just sort of a soup thickener.

I couldn't find any of those in the stores this year though and none of the bulbs I brought with me from Illinois survived last year's troubles.

I've heard good things also about those canna lilies.

Taste is supposed to be similar to potatoes, the real prize is that they are THE substitute for people with diabetes, and do not present the starch problem.

Green beans for ease of cultivation, protein, vitamins, and yield.

There are some important herbs easy to care for, comfrey, chives.

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Ernie, can you raise field peas, aka cowpeas. If you can, there are enough varities that you can plant from spring to fall. You can freeze 'em, with or without some of the snaps in 'em.
How 'bout sweet taters. They say you can just about survive off of them. In some places they eat the leaves of the vines. Vines make good critter feed, so do the taters.
There has been a many Southern household that survived eating field peas, sweet taters, cornbread, and rice. A little meat to season was all they got, if they had it.

We had trouble with beans and peas this year ... the grasshoppers ate most of the leaves off the plants during the dry spell. Don't know if they'll recover.

Wisdom leads me to believe I need a diverse garden, not one big, well-producing crop. Okra and zucchini provides much of our vegetable fare right now, with tomatoes and cucumbers providing lunch almost every day. Here in mid-August I'm going to put in another run of peas, I reckon.

Ernie, can you raise field peas, aka cowpeas. If you can, there are enough varities that you can plant from spring to fall. You can freeze 'em, with or without some of the snaps in 'em. You can let them dry, and cook them like dry beans.
How 'bout sweet taters. They say you can just about survive off of them. In some places they eat the leaves of the vines. Vines make good critter feed, so do the taters.
There has been a many Southern household that survived eating field peas, sweet taters, cornbread, and rice. A little meat to season was all they got, if they had it.

I had always heard that kale is one of the healthiest vegetables. I usually grow it for a fall crop...it has a good amount of vitamin c, which is nice for the winter months and very high in vitamin k. Of course, cooking it with bacon grease could diminish it some.

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