NATURALIZING EDIBLE PLANTS

A few weeks ago, I had numerous posts about the fields of dewberries we had growing wild.  Then I discovered (through the help of you all) the passion fruit/maypop vine that will produce fruit and there are quite a few of those around.  And of course we have lots of Mesquite trees whose pods can supposedly be dried and ground into mesquite flour.  I'm not sure about that just yet, but might just try that next Fall.  We've also seen in the past, a small wild hot pepper plant that springs up randomly.
So all this got me to wondering something;
Is it possible to create naturalized food plants on a piece of property?

Wild Dewberries on our farm

I'm not talking about fruit trees of course, I'm planting lots of those.  Or building gardens, yes we'll have those too.  I was thinking about the things that just grow wild in other places without intervention of watering, or fertilizing, and just do their thing.  For example, those dewberries.  They come back year after year in the same spots, and never get a drop of water other than what comes naturally in the form of rain (fruit was heavy this year even after the epic drought).  The passion vine fruit has just sprung up and seems to be doing fine as well, no extra watering for it.  Occasionally, I'll read on a blog where they were wandering around on a hike and found wild onion or garlic growing on the side of the road or by a fence, or maybe wild grapes growing under some old tree.  I even read a book recently that referenced wild rosemary and thyme growing on a hillside. 

So that's why I was wondering if there was any sort of perennial edible that I could perhaps throw down, maybe deliberately scatter some seeds, dig in some bulbs or maybe even small seedlings and cuttings?  I could of course water them a few times to get them started and then I'd like to ignore them and hope they come back year after year.  Almost like flower bulbs that just come back year after year with very little outside intervention.  I'd love to just have wild edibles growing in patches here and there.  I'm sure there are lots of things growing now that I don't even know are edible too.

Wild Onions, harvested.  Courtesy of: homegrown.org

I know you can naturalize plants of all kinds that are native and grow well in certain areas, so I wondered about native edibles.

Hey, we have several acres to play with, I'm willing to plant some test things and see what happens.  Hmm, could I plant some rosemary scattered around in different spots and just let it grow?  Put down onion seeds or chives and just let them grow?  Any edible food type bulbs I could plant that will just grow and divide and come back next year and the year after that?

Wild Rosemary

Any thoughts?  Anyone ever tried something like this?
I'm off to the farm today, by way of the storage unit first, so please feel free to leave suggestions, personal stories, etc and I'll check them when I get back.