Another perennial plant that is great for the permaculture garden would be comfrey. Comfrey has been used as a food and also medicinally for hundred of years. Like many beneficial plants, it has lately been the victim of being maligned as dangerous to eat this plant or even drink the comfrey leaf tea. However, it is one of those things where you would have to be consuming huge amounts of it to cause any harm, and there are actually no reports of it killing anyone who ate it, or even making them sick. The plant has alkaloids in it, which is actually found in all greens, and that is why it has been determined as unsafe to eat. Many years ago, my mother grew comfrey when I was growing up, and I have grown it and eaten the leaves most of my adult life, with no bad effects of any kind. It can also be used as a poultice and will help speed along any kind of healing process, as well as helping with joint pain or arthritis. Both the leaves and the root can be used as the poultice, but all I have ever used is the leaves. Leaves from the comfrey plant have an abundance of minerals in them, and are also great used to nourish other plants. You can simply shred the leaves around the base of another flower or shrub and the comfrey will disintegrate and nourish the plant. It is perennial and comes back every year, so once you get some starts (ebay), then you will always have comfrey coming up on the property.
So true comfrey is a darling of permaculture. With long tap roots that dig deep and bring up lots of nutrients Chop and Drop makes comfrey a star. Never till comfrey every piece of root will grow you a new plant. Can be very invasive. Also it produces seeds prolifically that will also make it invasive. There is a sterile variety that you can get in Amazon that produces sterile seeds so you don't have that problem. Dovie
I think that permaculture is the direction that we are heading this year, too. Every year, I have planted my little garden veggies, some in the ground and some in containers, and they do not do well either way, we just have too many trees and too much shade everywhere. I am trying the passive hydroponics with jars and gallon jugs, and hoping that this will work better. I can start the plants inside and the squirrels and birds can’t eat the seeds like they usually have done. I have several blueberry bushes, and last year, we got 3 currant bushes. The strawberries mostly got eaten by the birds (?) before they got ripe, and I am wanting to move the whole strawberry patch into some kind of raised container area, and then plant more current bushes in the area where the strawberries are at right now. Our friend (who Bobby has been working with on his rental properties) brought us some starts from 2 kinds of fig trees, and I have set them out in containers so they can root. We have one little fig tree out back, but it has not produced any figs as of yet...... maybe this year ? We have a good farmers market, so we can get really nice fresh veggies that way, and I can grow things that will actually grow here.