I recently looked at a book my local library has. Something about growing vegetables in drought and desert climates. I opened it, and on the very first page, the author declares that vegetable gardening isn’t like “normal” gardening, because all vegetables come from climates with plenty of water and can’t handle drought at all.
(Facepalm.) Clearly squashes don’t exist. Or tepary beans. Or sunflowers. Or corn.
Let’s make a list of all the common vegetables (and other food crops) that come from arid climates! This thread may be valuable for new gardeners in arid ecosystems who are trying to figure out what might do well for them.
Is there really an agreed social/scientific definition of what a vegetable is? This is something I joke about with my wife a lot.
I would say leafy greens like lettuce are vegetables. It is vegetative growth.
I consider the common edible part of most common crops to be fruit. A tomato is by definition a fruit but most people would call a tomato a vegetable.
For purposes of a wide discussion, I would define vegetable as a plant grown by humans to be eaten seasonally. We could narrow it to "traditional " crops based on the purpose of the discussion, but why limit it?
Yeah, let’s include any plant eaten by humans on the list. Fruits, nuts, grains, spices, etc.
Heh – in fact, we probably don’t even want to narrow it down to something to be eaten seasonally! Some things, like garlic, can be available year-round because their shelf life is so long.
Adam’s needle yucca, the species most often used as an ornamental, has edible flowers and seed pods. The flowers and unripe green seed pods taste like green bell peppers.
There are also two yucca species that make sweet fruit: Yucca baccata (banana yucca) and Yucca aloifolia (aloe yucca).
Hi.
I like to use these definitions: Arid = less than 300 mm of rainwater per year. Desertic = Draught/Flood raining pattern. Mediterranean is a special case because it has a desertic pattern in summer and a rainy pattern the rest of the year (currently only true for spring, we’ve had no significant rains in automn for the last seven years).
So, if you live somewhere where it is arid but not desert, you can grow almost anything that likes the temperature, as long as you provide a sufficiently large water capture area, giving more spacing to crops. I am supposing no irrigation.
If you live somewhere where it is desertic, then you need draught tolerant plants (and spacing them accordingly to the water needs). Some seeds may never sprout without frequent rains.
When I was looking at edible native plants in the mediterranean, I was surprised by how much food you can grow… in spring and automn. When it comes to summer, the real desertic time, there’s not much available: figs, plums, purslane, garlics, fennel, dryland melons, Grapes and some olives in late summer. Wheat for those who have large farms. Even those crops require that the farmer protects the humidity in the soil (traditionally by shallow tilling and removing weeds).
Most of our draught tolerant plants use a lethargy strategy, they stop vegetative growth until the temperature is safe again, since the draught period coincides with the higher temperatures of summer. So, while they can survive the harsh summer, they don’t actually produce anything during that period.
This is why we shouldn’t water a draught tolerant plant in summer. If we do it, then the plant doesn’t go to lethargy, it stays in vegetative state and consumes much more water than what we can provide, then it dies. Even if we can provide enough water, it may damage the roots for excessive heat, or cause fungal diseases.
I started a thread about crops that can grow through the winter, precisely for people with climates similar to the Mediterranean one: a semi-desert with dry summers and wet winters. If you have recommendations to add to that thread, feel free!
Some things, like garlic, can be available year-round because their shelf life is so long.