At the start, my new backyard in Coeur d’Alene was empty. Not even weeds yet. Just a blank, muddy, slate.

Little by little, I’ve filled it up with a grass lawn and more than 25 types of perennial edible fruits and herbs. It’s all been years of trial and error, honestly.

Some plants thrived. Some perished. Others weren’t worth the trouble to me.

Ultimately, the best plants are the ones you actually enjoy looking at, harvesting, and eating year after year.

Here’s my take, after considering how well the plant survives in my yard, how much it produces, how good it tastes, how usable or likable it is, and how much effort it takes:

Hands-down the best berry to grow in North Idaho. If you only grow one thing, grow strawberries.

Strawberry plants don’t need much space, but they can also spread and fill in a lot of space if you want them to. As with many berry plants, they produce more if they get a lot of sunshine and water.

Some strawberry varieties will produce huge crops all at once, called “June-bearing” varieties, while “everbearing” varieties will produce less abundantly but for longer during the season.

They’ll send out a lot of shoots to start new plants — cut them if you don’t want them to spread, or if you want to redirect the plant’s energy into producing more berries instead.

Raspberries basically raise themselves in our climate. They’re easy to pick, and birds and bugs mostly leave them alone. Look for the thornless varieties for easier picking.

Some varieties can keep producing into the late fall. Consider trying yellow raspberries if you want subtle tropical undertones compared to traditional red.

Vertical support, like string or a trellis, can help them get more sunshine to produce heavier crops. It can also make them look more organized and make harvesting easier.

I didn't expect grapes to work here. They do. Homegrown grapes will ruin store-bought grapes for you forever.

A lot of grapes do not like our climate. Some, including seedless varieties like “Jupiter” and “Reliance”, love it. Grapes need lots of sun, deep soil, and not too much water. It takes relatively little effort to keep them alive and producing once they’re established.

The vines can grow a lot in one season. They’re happiest if they can climb up a stable trellis, arbor, pergola, or other structure. They tolerate a lot of pruning, and fruit grows from the current year’s vine growth, so don’t be afraid to cut it back and shape it as needed.

When selecting grapes to plant, look for table varieties that are seedless and sweet enough to eat fresh, unless you plan to make your own wine or juice. Also be sure to select a variety rated to USDA Zone 6 or lower.

These have been one of my favorite discoveries. They’re easy to grow, incredibly productive, ignored by most birds and bugs, and packed with nutrients including Vitamin C.

While technically sweet enough to eat fresh, they can be an acquired taste… They have complex, sometimes musky flavors that taste great mixed with a mouthful of other berries, in baked goods, or in smoothies.

My five plants produce so much that I rinse and freeze the berries and use them for months after the growing season.

The leaves have a distinct, musky smell that can transfer to your skin or clothes while working with them.

Some call aronia a “superfood” due to its nutrient profile. It’s also called chokeberry, because if eaten alone, they can make your mouth feel dry. It’s an odd sensation.

Aronia plants can be either bushes or small trees. Sometimes they produce so much fruit that they weigh down the branches. They are very low maintenance and are covered with beautiful flowers in the spring.

Similar to black currants, they’re not really good to eat by themselves. But they’re great mixed with other foods like baked goods, jams, and smoothies.

Rosemary almost didn’t qualify for this list. Most varieties of rosemary don’t survive North Idaho winters. Mine is rated to USDA Zone 6 and has survived at least a couple winters now.

We use rosemary often in the kitchen. Its piney flavor pairs great with potatoes, gravy, chicken, steak, breads (especially focaccia or sourdough), soups, sauces, and more.

Unless you keep it in a pot and bring it inside over the winter, plan to protect it (mulch at the base, shield from wind, etc.) or buy a new one in the spring.

If you need a fast privacy screen, elderberry is your answer (specifically American elderberry). Elderberry shrubs are fast growers. Some of my established elderberry plants put on 9-10 feet of growth just last summer.

Most varieties don’t get taller than 10-20 feet, but they can easily get as wide as they are tall if you don’t cut them back occasionally.

Cons: The berries must be cooked before eating, and the rest of the plant is toxic to people and many animals. They’re ugly in the winter.

Pros: They respond well to aggressive trimming when needed. Cooked berries make a delicious syrup that many drink for immune system support.

Just a simple, tasty herb with pretty purple flowers. Similar flavor to green onions. They come back every spring without any help, spread slowly into a tidy clump, and never seem to get sick or eaten by anything.

I use them most on eggs, potatoes, and anything that needs a mild onion finish. Snip what you need and the plant doesn't even notice.

Blueberries are overrated. They aren’t difficult, but they’re not a free pass, either. They like acidic soil, so from time to time you need to amend the soil to keep them happy.

They’re delicious eaten fresh from the bush (if you can get to them before the birds do). But honestly, they’re not wildly better than store-bought blueberries.

If you have room, consider getting multiple varieties of blueberries that produce at different times so you can have fresh blueberries for months.

Blackberries are easy to grow and hard to contain — think giant, stocky raspberry canes that need something to lean on.

Birds leave them mostly alone, unlike half the berries on this list.

This might be the strangest plant in my yard. It’s a Siberian shrub or tree that produces bright orange berries that would taste tropical if they weren’t so tart and acidic. They are extremely rich in vitamin C and natural fatty acids.

They do great in poor soil, and they’re even nitrogen-fixers, meaning they put nitrogen into the soil. (Nitrogen is the ingredient in fertilizer that helps grass and plants grow green and healthy foliage).

Cons: Vicious thorns require a blood sacrifice. Two plants — male and female — are necessary for fruit production. It also naturally spreads aggressively by sending up shoots through its root system.

Pros: The fruit is incredibly nutritious and great mixed with other foods. The foliage is beautiful. It’s a unique plant.

I will be transplanting mine into fabric pots to stop them from spreading into my lawn and strawberries. If they don’t survive in pots, they will be disqualified from my garden.

This is probably the lowest maintenance herb in my yard. It grows as an attractive groundcover. Tastes great with meat, chicken, and gravies. I've found it pairs really well with rosemary in the same dish.

It handles our winters without much protection and bounces back reliably. Some varieties have flowers in the spring. I grow both traditional thyme and a “lime thyme” variety that has a citrusy kick to it.

Mint will take over your yard if you let it.

My favorite types are spearmint, peppermint, and sweet mint. Some varieties grow lower to the ground, while others are taller. All of them spread aggressively, so consider keeping them controlled in pots.

Rhubarb looks like red and green celery stalks with with huge leaves. Only the stalks are edible. The leaves are toxic. Stalks can be harvested multiple times throughout the season — whenever they are at least as wide as your finger.

Our favorite use for rhubarb is in fruit pies, crisps/cobblers, or syrup. It pairs great with strawberries.

Jostaberry is a hybrid of black currant and gooseberry. It's easier to grow than gooseberries — no thorns, lower disease risk, and fewer pests.

The flavor lands somewhere between the two parents: slightly tart like a gooseberry, but without the full intensity of black currant.

Another simple, tasty herb. A handful of fresh leaves browned in butter is one of the best things you can add to pasta or meat.

Ours is still young and small, but they can get surprisingly large and shrubby over time. The leaves are soft and velvety, and the flowers attract pollinators.

Another herb that works great in sauces and soups. I grow both classic oregano and a spicy variety. The spicy oregano has an interesting kick to it — it feels like it's going to get hot, but then the sensation subsides.

The classic goes in basically everything Italian. The spicy one I use more selectively, but it's worth growing. I like to hand a sprig to someone and watch their face.

I like honeyberries, also called haskap, because they’re the first to leaf out in the spring. They’re also the earliest fruit producers — fruit can be harvested as early as May.

Honeyberries are similar to blueberries, but oblong in shape and more tart. That is, all the honeyberries I’ve ever been able to eat before the birds have been more tart than blueberries.

Serviceberries are a four-season plant. They have flowers in the spring, bright green leaves in summer, and leaves that turn bright colors in the fall. The fruit attracts birds if unharvested during the winter.

Serviceberry tastes like a softer and almost nutty blueberry, but not quite as sweet. Like aronia, I prefer to mix them with other foods or berries. They usually grow as multi-stemmed trees.

Delicious but sensitive. Not all types of peaches grow well in our climate. Be sure to find peaches that can grow in USDA Zone 6 or lower. Elberta and Contender are two varieties that are known to do well. We’ve had a couple incredible harvests with our Contender variety.

We’ve had less of a problem with pests and birds eating peach than with the pears or apples, but this year the tree got a fungal disease called peach leaf curl. We’ll see how it recovers.

Lots of apples grow great in our climate, but they rank lower on my list because of the maintenance aspect. They typically need to be sprayed for pests.

There are somewhat natural and uncomplicated ways to accomplish this, but I just haven’t put forth the effort to figure it all out yet. Depending on my findings, I may rank apples higher in the future.

Same story as apples.

You know those Wint-O-Green Life Savers? That flavor originated from the wintergreen plant’s leaves. The red berries are edible and have a similar flavor.

Wintergreen makes an attractive groundcover that does well in the shade. It’s more for novelty and the “cool” factor than a practical crop.

Gooseberries disappointed me. A couple years ago, they would have made the Top 10 of this list.

Pros: Wide variety of sweet/tart flavors. Beautiful foliage, especially in spring.

Cons: Nasty thorns make harvesting and pruning difficult or painful. Plants are prone to being stripped bare by the gooseberry sawfly. Thornless varieties don’t taste as good.

Looks kind of like salmon caviar. Tastes almost sweet but has too many seeds to be enjoyable.

From the real estate sales side of my brain: all of this has been worth it to me, and I'd do it again. But if I were to sell my home, I know many buyers wouldn’t be interested in inheriting my personal backyard plant laboratory.

Do what makes your property enjoyable to live in, but just keep in mind that heavy customization can easily become a sticking point, not a selling point.

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