Perennial Greens Planting Plan

Zone 1, extending into zone 2. From bottom center, working counter-clockwise:
Giant sea kale, sweet cicely in seed, turkish rocket, zebra mallow in flower, perennial kale in seed, lemon balm, french sorrel in seed, borage in flower, elephant garlic in flower, sylvetta arugula in flower, and nipplewort.
Also skirret & chinese dogwood in background, with crocosmia in foreground.

Two mistakes I made in my perennial vegetable experimentations in Portland:

1. I overplanted perennial greens, more than we could possibly eat.
2. I planted the greens over a large area, forcing more traversal of the yard than necessary. Though walking the yard to pick greens helps keep an eye on everything, it's inefficient to go further than necessary on a nearly daily basis.

Before we sold the house, I was consolidating a core set of perennial greens into approximately 100 square feet of beds closest to the house. This brought the front yard garden into better alignment with design by zones, with a tight zone 1 producing the majority of the daily pickings for two adults (leaves & flowers, salads & cooked), and freeing up zone 2 for root crops and less frequently harvested vegetables. I still envisioned picking from zone 2, from deliberate plantings and from edible weeds, a few times a week for variety and to augment zone 1 production.

This design took advantage of the fact that, for much of the year, the house shades most of the front yard area closest to it (especially after we raised the house 3'.) Most of the perennial greens should do well in partial to full shade, whereas the root crops and annuals generally need more sun. Most herbs also want full sun, and we found we didn't need to pick them with each batch of greens, so the larger ones made more sense for us in zone 2.

Writing this up two years later, I don't remember the exact number of which plants I moved into zone 1, but I believe I've come close below. It's a good starting point; you'll need to experiment anyway with what works well in your site and what you like to eat. Regardless of the exact species composition, the end result of densely planted perennials should be a yield of greens requiring little to no work besides harvest - more or less no need to dig soil, replant, or weed. (And year-round, at least in Portland and similarly mild winter climates.)

Large Plants

Usually planted 2-3' apart. You can perhaps get away with closer spacing in a heavily harvested zone 1, but I'd be inclined to still give them full spacing.

Qty	Latin name	Common name
1	Agastache foeniculum	Anise hyssop
1	Brassica oleracea acephala	Tree collards
3	Brassica oleracea acephala	'Western Front' perennial kale
1	Crambe cordifolia	Giant sea kale
2	Crambe maritima	Sea kale
1	Foeniculum vulgare	Fennel
2	Malva sylvestris mauritiana	Zebra mallow
1	Malva moschata	Musk mallow
2	Melissa officinalis	Lemon balm
1	Myrrhis odorata	Sweet cicely
2	Rumex scutatus or R. acetosa	French Sorrel
6 sf	Scorzonera hispanica	Scorzonera

Groundcovers

These can be planted under and around the large plants, to exclude weeds and provide bonus greens & flowers.

Latin name	Common name
Barbarea verna	Wintercress
Campanula portenschlagiana	Bellflower
Campanula poscharskyana	Trailing bellflower
Claytonia montia	Miner's lettuce
Claytonia siberica	Siberian miner's lettuce
Diplotaxis tenuifolia	Sylvetta arugala
Origanum spp	Oregano species
Oxalis oregona	Redwood sorrel
Rumex acetosella	Sheeps sorrel
Sanguisorba minor	Salad burnet
Stellaria media	Chickweed
Taraxacum officianale	Dandelion
Thymus spp	Thyme species
Viola spp	Violets

Bed Edges

We used a lot of Allium greens, finding them much easier to grow than bulbing onions. These work well along the edges of beds, helping delineate the pathways.

Latin name	Common name
Allium ampeloprasum	Elephant garlic / Leek
A. cepa 'proliferum'	Egyptian walking onion
Allium cernuum	Nodding onion
Allium fistulosum	Bunching onion
Allium sativum	Garlic
Allium schoenoprasum	Chives
Allium tuberosum	Garlic chives

Zone 2 Greens

If you have more room available, I would experiment with these. For species already listed above, numbers given are in addition to the quantity in zone 1. These are just for greens and flowers; not considering root and seed harvests of things like yellow asphodel and good king henry.

Qty	Latin name	Common name
1	Agastache foeniculum	Anise hyssop
5	Anthriscus sylvestris	Woodland chervile
2	Aquilegia vulgaris	Columbine
4	Asphodeline lutea	Yellow asphodel
2-3	Bunias orientalis	Turkish rocket
4	Campanula rapunculoides, C. persicifolia, and other tall species	Bellflowers
10	Chenopodium bonus-henricus	Good King Henry
2	Crambe maritima	Sea kale
1-2	Foeniculum vulgare	Fennel
1	Levisticum officinale	Lovage
1	Lycium barbarum	Wolfberry
6sf	Mentha spicata	Spearmint
1-2	Myrrhis odorata	Sweet cicely
3-4	Oenothera biennis	Evening primrose
3	Rumex scutatus or R. acetosia	French sorrel
2	Smyrnium olusatrum	Alexanders
1	Symphytum officinalis	Comfrey
10sf	Urtica dioica	Stinging nettles

Zone 2 Stems & Shoots

Other vegetables nice to grow for something other than greens and flowers.

Latin name	Common name
Arctium lappa or A. minor	Burdock
Asparagus officinalis	Asparagus
Maianthemum racemosum	False solomon's seal
Petasites frigidus	Sweet Coltsfoot
Petasites japonicus	Fuki
Polygonatum biflorum and P. commutatum	Solomon's seal
Rheum x cultorum	Rhubarb

Zone 2 Weeds

Volunteers that often need to be kept in check. We generally ate these rather than weeding per se.

Latin name	Common name
Borago officinalis	Borage
Calendula officinalis	Calendula
Cardamine unknown	Popweed
Geum urbanum	Clove root
Lamium purpuruem	Purple dead nettle
Lapsana communis	Nipplewort
Phytolacca americana	Pokeweed
Solanum nigrum	Black nightshade
Taraxacum officinale	Dandelion