Hitch it to the Horseweed

 

Welcome back to the Lost In the Farmer’s Market Blog. At the current time we have a long-running series that covers useful, edible and medicinal ‘weeds’ that you can commonly find in the southeastern states of the United States. While our survey area is just within Cumberland County North Carolina it’ is possible you can find some of these forage plants in other places. This series was begun to give folks a detailed look into the resources they might not have known were right there in their lawn. Given that the world situation is not that great and there are already shortages of critical grains and fertilizers forage foods may be the most useful answer on a local level. LITFM will keep this series going as long as we keep finding wild resources to photograph and write about. If you have any questions or comments about our articles please leave a comment either here or on our YouTube Channel (The link is at the end of the article). Thank you for reading, and remember just one thing, you can’t eat lawn grass.

 

 

Horseweed can pop up almost anywhere in an urban environment. This one is crowing through a crack int he cement which means you cant harvest the roots, but that foliage is tender and ready.

 

 

 

 

Common Name: Horseweed

 

Other Common Names: Canadian Horseweed, Canadian Fleabane, Coltstail, Marestail, Butterweed.

 

Botanical Family: Asteraceae (The Aster Family)

 

Botanical Latin Name: Erigeron canadensis (Also listed as Conyza canadensis)

 

Season to Harvest: In the spring, summer and fall.

 

Habitat: Horseweed will pretty much appear anywhere a human has disturbed the soil. They pop up in fields, pastures, yards in garden beds, by the roadside and even in large potted plants that are outdoors.

 

Parts to Harvest: Leaves, roots, flowers.

 

Poisonous Lookalikes: None are known.

 

Related Edible Species: None are known.

 

Description: Horseweed is a tall-growing summer or winter annual with bristly/hairy stems. Its leaves are borne in an alternating pattern and lack petioles. The overall leaf shape is linear to oblanceolate. Flowers appear at the top of the primary stems and are white to lavender in color with yellow centers. This plant reproduces mainly by seed and can grow to a height of five feet tall. Horseweed is native to North America and Central America. This is one of the first plants to have developed a resistance to Roundup (Glyphosate) as reported in 2001 in Delaware.

 

How to Harvest: If you are harvesting leaves you can either pluck individual ones off the plant or harvest entire stalks and remove the leaves from the plant. Harvesting the roots is best done near the end of the plant’s life cycle so that you obtain the largest amount of material. You want to dig the plant up or if it seems robust enough gently pull it and then wash the roots thoroughly and air dry for up to two weeks and store in an air-tight container.

 

Horseweed is one of the rare forage plants that has nutritional data. Multiple sources note that per 100 grams of dried leaves the leaves have a small amount of fat and protein. There is some fiber content, a modest amount of carbohydrates, 8 grams of ash, 910 mg of calcium, 270 mg of phosphorous and 2,600 mg of potassium

 

Recipe:

The dried leaves can be used as a spice which is roughly similar in flavor to Tarragon. Very young leaves and shoots can be used as a potherb.

 

 

With all that garden goodness covered this is the part of the blog where I have to advertise for the Fayetteville City Market. Now I know you readers probably don’t much like advertisements, but by booth at the City Market helps to cover the costs of running the test garden and literally maintains the Research & Development budget that is used to bring you the information that has made up the backbone of this blog.  In addition to being able to process card payments we now take CashApp payments so your payment options for my product have tripled. With that said; if you want to get some GMO-free, Organic fruit, herbs, flowers and perennials, come on down to the Fayetteville City Market on 325 Maxwell Street in downtown Fayetteville between the Hours of 8:00 am and 1:00 pm on Saturdays. Even in bad weather the market goes on though you might have to look for me under the ‘arches’ of the Transportation Museum’s front entryway.

 

 

For those of you wondering what plants are going to be at the market this weekend here is the list.

 

Fresh Produce:

Peppers, Lemon Drop

Peppers, Fayetteville Inferno

Peppers, Sweet Heat & Purple Bell

Garlic Bulbs

Soup Kit – Parsnip

Soup Kit – Turnip

 

 

Garden Stuff: ($3.00)

Broccoli - Destiny

Brussel Sprouts - Redarling

Cauliflower – Snow Crown

Cauliflower – Flame Star

Celery - Tango

Cilantro – Vietnamese

Collards – Green Glaze

Cuban Oregano – Cervesa & Lime

Hoan Ngoc

Mizuna Mustard – Miz America

Mustard – Japanese Red Giant

Pak Choi – Rose’

Sage – Pineapple

 

 

Coming Soon:

House Plants (November)

 

 

 

How to stay in Contact with Us!

 

Our group’s online presence has migrated to Nextdoor.com. All you need to keep up with all our activities is to have a Nextdoor account and to look for the ‘Sustainable Neighbors of Fayetteville’ group and ask to join! You don’t have to live in Fayetteville to join us! Feel free to ask all your garden questions of our knowledgeable membership and post your cool garden pictures.

 

Sustainable Neighbors of Fayetteville

 

Also please take a gander at the Youtube version of this blog:

The Videos: Look Here

>Newest videos (1): Sweet Potato Vine

 

Meetings still going on! We now meet at LeClair’s General Store on the First and Third Thursday of every month. Our next meeting is on October 20^th between 5:30pm and 7:00pm. We are in the back room so come on in and join us for a fun garden chat.

 

*This episode’s song reference in the title is a nod to ‘Hitch it to the horse', by The Fantastic Johnny C.