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

You must have gotten a bad batch of seeds--I usually have good luck with NZ spinach. The hoppers are bad this year. I'm hoping the rain will do them in. My garden is pretty much a bust this year due to water restrictions -- we are only allowed to water once a week and my rainwater tanks ran almost dry before this current deluge. But I have Swiss chard, summer squash (which is really struggling so might pull it and replant in Aug.), tomatoes, peppers, okra, eggplant, several kinds of runner beans and 21 peas. I'm battling the drought, hoppers and squash bugs, so harvest isn't up to normal. But I figure if I can keep things alive until fall, things should improve greatly.

This fall I'll put in more greens and eat off them all winter. I usually plant a lettuce mix, chard, spinach and broccoli in Sept. and have them until May or early June. Except last year where everything except the chard bolted by the first of the year thanks to the abnormally warm winter.

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Can I swap you something for some more seeds then? Or a couple of young plants in a pot? I figured I just didn't know how to germinate them properly. They were some pretty scary looking seeds.

We've kept the garden doing by watering heavily from the pond, but the pond was down to almost nothing before this deluge. Now it's full and overflowing. Praise God! I thought I was going to have to resort to something drastic like going and getting a job.

I'm using DE and it's keeping the squash bugs at bay, but the grasshoppers just think it's some sort of exotic seasoning. I went into Brownwood to see if I could get some Neem oil, but the cost of it was somewhat prohibitive. Figured we'd better just learn to like grasshoppers more than beans.

Parsley is another good cut and come again plant from nutritional standpoint. Get it started in the cool season and it will establish itself to let you harvest heavily from it all year in mild climates (it resows itself nicely, too). Parsley has been pretty drought tolerant in the summer for us once it is established.

Very good nutrition profile:
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/...roducts/2513/2

Homemade tabbouleh is wonderful!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabbouleh

Is this NZ spinach also called Malabar spinach? I got some Malabar spinach seeds from my sister in Fl. few years back. They start slow, once they get going-get out of the way,they like the heat too.

Glad to hear you got plenty of rain. We've had 2 days of good slow, soaking rain that we desperately needed. Truly a blessing this time of year.

It is such a blessing. Our pond is full again and overflowing. Without the garden and the livestock, our entire business (and homesteading) model collapses, and without the pond ... all of THAT collapses. And it was getting mighty low. You could wade across the middle of it without getting your butt wet.

I was praying night and day and every spare moment for more rain, and the Lord delivered. Now I can continue expanding the garden and get by through the rest of the summer AND the winter.

Some of y'all who get your water from the tap or a deep electric-powered well may not realize the sheer importance surface water plays here on our off-grid farm, but it was literally going to mean the difference between continuing this way of life or having to give it up for a time.

Second this. I have been eating and growing purple hulls for over 40 years, grew up with them as a staple in my parent's and grandparent's gardens. Have five rows of them out in the garden right now, about to start producing (we were late this year getting planted due to the rain). Purple hulls are field peas like blackeye, they will tolerate drought and heat and still produce a LOT of food. Here in the South, when all else fails in the garden you can usually always count on the purple hulls to feed you. When you pick them, be sure to only pick the ones that have turned purple or at least mostly purple, they taste better. I cook them with a little bacon grease, a dash of apple cider vinegar and a couple of tablespoons of sugar. To go with a pan of corn bread, some fried taters, cut up a ripe tomato and a hunk of onion makes a GOOD meal.

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Kale, any kind, but I really like the dinosaur kale. It lasts the entire fall/winter season; just got taller & taller while I picked the leaves off.

What the heck is dinosaur kale?

Had to go look up dinosaur kale, it's what I call black kale, amazing plants. As I posted earlier, produces for over a year for us. And I don't have to can, freeze or dehydrate it as it's always in the garden!

Thanks for the post Ernie, some interesting ideas on here, didn't realize thee was a whole world of peas I didn't know about.

New Zealand Spinach needs to be soaked before planting, or/and kept damp for a couple weeks. It's not a fast germinator, or at least that's what I read. After trying 2 times to grow some, the 3rd time I kept it wet a couple weeks and it came up fine.

7thswan...NZ Spinach grows sorta like a ground cover, Malabar, well it's best to have a suport for it to grow up,over and around.

As to the bugs, have you tried spraying a tabasco/garlic mix. It'll run some things,so will soapy water. The hot sauce will work for deer also. I've a neighbor that orders it by the case to spray on his soybeans.....works on about 400 acres.

Haven't tried anything other than DE. It does wonders on the squash bugs and cucumber beetles, but the grasshoppers it doesn't bother much.

Tabasco and garlic makes me hungry for dinner.

pick the hoppers and use them as a protein source. problem solved.

Someone gave me a sweet potato a little while back. It started sprouting & just out of curiosity I stuck it in a 2 cup measuring cup. Its sprouting & growing like crazy. Im going to have to plant it soon, or else Im going to have vines & leaves everywhere soon to.

OK this isn't a food... but have you heard of the Keyhole gardening they do in Africa?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykCX...FAD47&index=29




Or see the Groasis Waterboxxes? I read about them on a blog I read of a guy down in Terlingua. Youtube has a ton of videos on them. They are being used in alot of deserts. You might be able to figure out a homeade-ish version.




And this is a nice video on how to build a self watering planter using buckets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t9g...FAD47&index=65




And one last one on self watering beds which I thought was good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL0v...FAD47&index=66



Maybe one of those might give you some good and cheap ideas!

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Very cool. I've seen keyhole gardening but not some of the other stuff. I'll check it out!

What is this DE you're talking about? We have had terrible cucumber beetle problems in the past.

I love kale and the other greens people are mentioning. I'm also a huge fan of Nor'easter beans. They're a fast growing (~50 day) pole bean that produces enormous, forearm-length beans that actually taste even better after they've been blanched and frozen. We do need to succession plant them, though, as they lose vitality after a month or so of producing. However, even in the north, we can get in at least two plantings.

Diatomaceous earth

Nutrient = protein, carbs, fat.
A lot of the items suggested have none of the above or very little.