Welcome to the 2024 edition of the LITFM blog. This blog is the text-based complement to my weekly posts on Nextdoor.com and the gardening channel on YouTube. In 2023, this blog took on a more formal instructional tone with jokes dispersed within to serve as a hub for conveying information that might not work in a video or weekly update format. The subject matter here is always the wide variety of plant-based foods that you can find growing around you in nature or as some call it ‘Forage Foods’. This ties in with local bartering, and indirectly now we will be including mycology. The primary reason for the change in the blog’s tone and topic came about due to the events of the pandemic, the resulting economic turmoil and other factors. The reality is that we are surrounded with perfectly edible plants that can fill at least some of the void in our dietary needs. There is no reason not to be educated in what is and is not safe and how to prepare it into a nutritious meal. With that said I also realized that in my own way by keeping this blog running I might be butting heads with a billion-dollar pesticide/herbicide/fertilizer industry at times. It has always been in the interest of that industry to label certain things ‘weeds’ so they can sell you product that as time goes by we find out is worse for your health than the weeds are. Coupled with an Agricultural-Education system that peddles the myths of the industry and the old myth that if you can afford a nice lawn you must have wealth we have a population that has been fooled for a long time. So, here we are in 2024, and the forage foods series will continue. I hope all of you who read this blog find the information useful or at least thought provoking. The ‘weeds’ I am listing a certainly found in Zone 8A in North Carolina and should certainly be easy to find in the Southeast regions of America. Thank you for sticking with LITFM and stay tuned for a year of forage foods.
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| Up close and personal, this is a first year Tall Lettuce plant. |
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| As you can see, a first year and a second-year Tall Lettuce are growing next to my Bears Breeches, I'm ok with this as they bring more of the pollinators to my yard. |
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| These are the emerging flowers of a Second-Year Tall Lettuce plant. They will be hosting aphids soon. |
Common Name: Tall Lettuce
Other Common Names: Wild Lettuce, Canada Lettuce.
Botanical Family: Asteraceae (The Aster Family)
Botanical Latin Name: Lactuca canadensis
Description & Habitat: Tall lettuce’s native range is unclear though current information suggests it is probably a North American native biennial. It is differentiated from Prickly Lettuce (Lactuca serriola) by a lack of hairs and prickly protrusions on its leaves and stems. This plant will form a large tap root and in its first year just a simple rosette of leaves that resemble those of the Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale). In the second year these plants will rapidly gain height and can be up to 6.5 feet tall. These edible plants can be naturally found in disturbed areas, by the roadside, in pastures and open woods but also will appear in yards and areas where mowing isn’t frequent or thorough. Occasionally as with the ones pictured in this blog post they will recur in a specific place in a yard year after year as if perennial. Individual plants in the vegetative and flowering state may be packed together on a small area of ideal soil. The flowers of Tall Lettuce will often remain closed on cloudy days which can be used as a weather indicator of possible precipitation or weather change. The flowers are yellow-orange in color and may turn purplish with age.
When & What to Harvest: Just like its cousin Prickly Lettuce, it is really only at its best when you harvest and use the younger leaves and preferably earlier in the spring or late winter. Ideally you want to pick leaves when the plant is less than a foot tall for best results. The flowers are useful for making a version of Dandelion Wine.
Poisonous Lookalikes: None known.
Related Edible Species: Prickly Lettuce (L. serriola).
Recipe:
You can use the greens by themselves or mixed with other forage greens in salads. As a cooked vegetable you can boil the leaves in a small amount of water for about 2 to 5 minutes and then serve with seasonings such as garlic, salt and butter. These leaves also pair well with crumbled feta, bacon if served cooked but in raw form and a robust Italian salad dressing does wonders for them especially with black olives and parmesan.
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 my 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.
Spring Vegetable Plants
Arugula – Astro
Kale – Kalebration Mix
Swiss Chard – Ruby Red
Summer Vegetable Plants (NEW!)
Tomato – Sweet 100
Tomato – Chocolate Cherry
Tomato – Black Krim
Pepper – Habanero
Pepper – Ancho/Poblano
Pepper – Sweet Banana
Pepper – Carolina Wonder
Herbs (New!)
Hoan Ngoc
Eucalyptus
Garden Plants
Daylilies
Walking Iris
Coming Soon:
Garlic Plants
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 (2): Wood Hyacinth, Blueberries (short video)
Meetings are 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 April 4th, between 5:30pm and 7:00pm. We are in the back room so come on in and join us for a fun garden chat.
