Egyptian Spinach

Note from the Author: This plant has never been covered on the blog before.

 

 

Notice the seed pod in the middle of the picture, this is about as big as they get.

The tiny yellow flowers are pretty, but not present enough to bother with. The pollinators still dig them.

Note the shape of the leaves.

This plant which was not grown optimally is lanky and loose but it's foliage is no less edible.

 

 

Common Name: Egyptian Spinach

 

Other Common Names: Molokhiya, Jute Mallow, Jew’s Mallow, Mallow Leaves, Nalita Jute, Tossa Jute, Mloukheyeh, West African Sorrel

 

Botanical Family: Malvaceae (The Hibiscus Family)

 

Botanical Latin Name: Corchorus olitorius

 

Description & Habitat:  It is unlikely that you will find this plant in the wilds of North Carolina as it is an introduced species. However it is possible you will find it in yards, old farms and in places where Jute was cultivated for the purposes of making rope. Egyptian Spinach is generally grown as a annual and on average the plant can grow to about five feet tall unless intentionally grown for the purposes of making fiber for ropes at which it can be up to thirteen feet tall. The leaves of this plant are borne in an alternate arrangement and are roughly elliptical in shape with a serrated margin and small thin spurs facing inward towards the stem. The flowers of this plant are tiny and yellow and seem to open sometime in the morning. Seed pods look a bit like a tiny okra pod but they only get an inch or three long and may curve at the tip. Overall this plant essentially looks like a weed despite its numerous useful traits.

 

Special Toxicity Note:  This plant has no toxicity

 

When & What to Harvest: The leaves and young seed pods are edible. Generally the leaves are what you want as they can be used fresh or dried as a tea or a soup thickener. The seeds even when mature are also edible though small.

 

Related Plants: White Jute (C. calsularis), is the other plant that supplies the fibers to make Jute Twine.

 

Recipe:  Normally I post one of my recipes here but I found one that looks so good that I’m sharing a link

https://harmonyvalleyfarm.com/recipes/stewed-egyptian-spinach-with-north-african-spices/

 

 

Additional Information: (If applicable)

https://www.kikkoman.com/en/cookbook/glossary/moroheiya.html

 

Where to get Seed or Bare Root Plants:

https://www.southernexposure.com/products/molokhiya-egyptian-spinach/

 

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 9:00 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.

 

 

Fresh Produce:

Figs, Magnolia

Peppers, Banana Drop Hybrid

 

Summer Vegetables:

Nightshade Greens, Gbognome

Nightshade Greens, West African Njama

 

Autumn Vegetables:

Collards ‘Green Glaze’

 

Herbs:

Chives

Egyptian Onions

 

Flowers:

Flowering Tobacco

 

Plants Coming Soon:

TBA

 

How to stay in Contact with Us!

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): Japanese Aralia

 

Meetings are still going on! Our next (unofficial) meeting is August 30^th at the Fayetteville City Market at 325 Franklin Street between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm.

The Mexican Cactus

 

Welcome back to the Lost In the Farmer’s Market blog. As some of you have noticed the blog has taken on a more formal instructional tone to cover the wide variety of forage foods that you can find all around you. This change came about due to the events of the pandemic, 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 but, there is a multi-million dollar herbicide industry that exists. 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 2023, 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. Oh, and one funny thing discovered in last year’s blog, it turns out you can eat Crab Grass, and while it isn’t what most would call a lawn grass, I did state you can’t eat your lawn in last year’s intro. Detailed research is a funny thing since it has a way of proving even the experts wrong. 

 

 

 

There are dozens of large specimens of Opuntia Humifusa in the Fayetteville Area.

See the fruit? at this stage when they are reddish-purple they are fully ripe.

Although I could not locate a example of it, there are varieties of this cactus that bloom pink and others that bloom red.

 

Common Name: Prickly Pear

 

Other Common Names:  Spreading Prickly Pear, Lawn Peyote, Indian Fig, Devil’s Tongue.

 

Botanical Family: Cactaceae (The Cactus Family)

 

Botanical Latin Name: Opuntia humifusa

 

Description & Habitat:  Prickly pear is best known for its flat thick succulent leaves (aka pads) and its variable growth habit. Depending on location and if it is cared for or simply ignored it might grow to heights of up to six feet tall or may just sort of sprawl across an area rooting wherever it’s pads touch the earth for any decent period of time. It is a perennial in USDA zones 4-9, and it reproduces by way of shed pads and by seeds from its edible fruits. Additionally shards of this plant’s pads may also take root so it is fairly persistent and can be grown as a forgeable food source. In the wild this plant is found in low maintenance areas such as turf grass areas that do not receive regular maintenance and it prefers sandy soils. It can also be found on rocky bluffs, sand dunes and, dry rocky or sandy grasslands. Sometimes it is planted intentionally as a no-maintenance decorative plant or as a barrier near businesses in the urban environment.

 

When & What to Harvest: With prickly pears you generally have two options for what to harvest; the fruit and the young pads. For harvesting the pads, wear protective leather gloves and remove young pads in the spring and summer. As a special note and thank you to the University of Nevada, Reno for having this tip on their website, it is best to pick prickly pear pads from Mid-morning to Mid-afternoon. This is because the Prickly pear acid content is higher at other times of the day and the pads flavor will be much less desirable. Pick fruits as they ripen and turn reddish-purple in late summer and autumn.

 

Poisonous Lookalikes: None.

 

Related Edible Species: Opuntia cacanapa ‘Ellisiana’ – Spineless Pricky Pear, Opuntia gosseliniana – Violet Prickly Pear, Opuntia santa-rita – Santa Rita Prickly Pear. There are many species of true Opuntia that have edible pads and fruit.

 

Recipe:  So there are a lot of ideas and recipes for this plants two primary food materials on the internet and in the books I read in preparation for this post. Here is just a sampling of some ideas that you can implement. Let’s start with those young tender Prickly Pear pads; the fastest way to get the spines off them is to gently use a stick lighter to burn off the spines. The big spines look terribly imposing, but it’s the fine hairy looking ones which are called glochids that you really have to worry about these are even present on ‘spineless’ prickly pears which simply lack the bigger more wicked looking spines. Gently flaming the white or tan colored glochids will scorch them off. Alternately you could take the time and use the eye removal part of a potato peeler to remove them but this can be quite time consuming per pad.

 

Once you’ve removed your cactus pad’s defenses, you can either peel them right off or cook them over an open flame and peel once they have reached a desired level of tenderness. You can then slice them and eat them like string beans or some other short cooking time green vegetable. They can be somewhat sticky once cooked like this which leads to the other means of cooking them. You can deep fry them like you might French fries or onion rings. A third alternative is to remove the spines of the pads and then cut them to size and put them in a large pot of water with some garlic, onions and bullion for flavor and bring to a boil and maintain the boiling for about 15 minutes or so.

 

The following additional recipes are curtesy of the University of Nevada, Reno:

 

Prickly Pear Lemonade: (modified a bit for clarity)

 

¼ Cup cactus juice

2 Large lemons

3 Cups of sugar

4 ½ cups of warm water

 

-Juice the prickly pears and lemons separately and then combine the juices.

-Add sugar.

-Add the water and stir until the sugar dissolves.

-Chill for an hour, this should make about two pints of beverage.

 

Cactus Jelly:

 

    4 Cups of cactus fruit juice (½ lemon juice can be substituted if desired)

    5 Cups of sugar

    2 Packages of pectin

 

-Put juice in a large pot and bring to a hard boil.

-Add sugar and boil for an additional three minutes or until the mixture becomes a gel.

-Pour the mix into sterilized jars and seal.

 

Grilled Nopales:

 

    Cactus nopales (aka a cactus pad or paddle)

    Olive oil

 

-Although simple, nopales can be delicious simply grilled.

-Take the prepared (De-spined) nopales after being cut,

-Brush olive oil onto the skin. (This is also where you might want to season them)

-Grill to the desired level of tenderness.

 

 

Special note: The title of this post is a song ‘The Mexican Cactus’ is by Jean Jacques Perrey.

 

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 9:00 am and 2:00 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:

Garlic Bulbs

Soup Kit – Parsnip

Soup Kit – Turnip

 

Coming Soon:

Spring Garden Plants are due in March 2023.

 

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): ‘Grassie Lassie’ Aloe

 

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 February 16^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.

It's the Primrose Thing to do

 

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.

 

 

 

Evening Primroses are one of the best things I ever unintentionally introduced to my garden.

 

Common Name: Evening Primrose

 

Other Common Names: Evening Star, Sundrop, German Rampion, Hog Weed, King’s Cure-All and, Fever-Plant

 

Botanical Family: Onagraceae (The Evening Primrose Family)

 

Botanical Latin Name: Oenothera biennis

 

Season to Harvest:  Summer, Fall and, Winter.

 

Habitat:  Common Evening Primrose is a Biennial non-native plant introduced from Europe that has escaped cultivation and can be found in disturbed sites, along roads, in prairies garden beds, lawns, pastures and prefers sunny arid places with loamy soils but will tolerate a lot of soil conditions. It is sensitive to nitrogen and areas with too much available nitrogen can adversely affect its production of seeds.

 

Parts to Harvest: You can harvest the leaves, taproot, second-year stalks, and flower buds and, the seeds are edible. I have to mention that some parts when eaten raw may irritate the throat so fully cook where needed and test small portions before you make a meal out of it.

 

Poisonous Lookalikes: None noted, though do not confuse this plant with other Evening Primroses.

 

Related Edible Species: O. Biennis, O. Hookeri, O. Lamarckiana, O. Californica, and O. nuttalli.

 

Description: Evening Primrose is a biennial that has a variable appearance based on its state of maturity. In the first year it forms a rosette and bears alternately arranged lance-shaped leaves. The species I have in the test garden occasionally also has reddish markings on the leaves. In the second year Evening primrose will grow a tall stalk that can be up to three feet tall which bears the flowers for which it is famous. The seed pods that follow are four-sided capsules that split at the tips when ready. A single seed pod can contain hundreds of individual seeds.

 

Recipe: Evening Primrose leaves can be used sparingly in forage salads but are best when cooked like spinach with other greens that have the same use. Typically cooking evening primrose leaves by themselves as a spinach substitute requires boiling for 15-20 minutes in at least two changes of water to even out the flavor. The taproots of this plant can be dug in the first year of growth during most of the year. Those taproots need to be peeled and boiled in at least two changes of water for an overall time of 20-30 minutes. Once tender the roots can be served with butter and seasonings or you can slice them up and fry them. A candy can be made out of the boiled roots; all you have to do is gently simmer the cooked roots in simple sugar syrup until they are properly candied.

 

 

 

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:

Garlic Bulbs

Soup Kit – Parsnip

Soup Kit – Turnip

 

 

Garden Stuff: ($3.00)

Brussel Sprouts - Redarling

Cauliflower – Snow Crown

Cauliflower – Flame Star

Cauliflower – Veronica

Celery - Tango

Cilantro – Vietnamese

Collards – Green Glaze

Kale – Ragged Jack

Kale - Redbor

Hoan Ngoc

Mustard – Japanese Red Giant

Pak Choi – Rose’

 

 

Coming Soon:

House Plants (November-ish)

 

 

 

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 (3): Angelonia

 

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 November 3^rd  between 5:30pm and 7:00pm. We are in the back room so come on in and join us for a fun garden chat.