5. American Groundnut (Apios americana)
The American groundnut is another beautiful edible plant you should consider for your garden. This shade-tolerant perennial vine doesn’t get the credit it deserves, though, considering how useful it can be as a crop.
Grow it in your garden, and it will produce edible tubers and seed pods as well as lovely reddish-pink flowers. It grows in vices that reach as much as six feet long, but you can train it to grow on trellises. Or you can just leave it by itself to grow as a ground cover.
This beautiful edible plant produces seed pods and flowers during the summer, and its tubers, which most people compare to a nutty-tasting potato, can be removed from the ground in the fall. You can add those groundnuts to stews, soups, and curries; mix them into stir-fries; or slice and steam them into the rice.
6. Common Fig (Ficus carica)
The common fig is another beautiful edible plant that’s native to southwest Asia but commonly planted throughout North America. This popular fruit tree has big, glossy leaves and succulent fruits, and it can be both a lovely foliage tree and a useful part of a home garden.
It does especially well in the warmer regions of the southern US, and it’s a great choice for small yards because it seldom exceeds 30 feet in height and 20 feet in spread. If you’re lucky enough to live in the Goldilocks zones with the ideal conditions to grow fig trees, you’ll have plenty of juicy figs to enjoy.
Its fruits can be used in jellied and sweet desserts, as well as in pork marinades and salads.
