Will The Real Lettuce Please Stand Up?

 Welcome back to an entirely new year of LITFM! We took a long hiatus to get our YouTube channel's second season completed and now this blog is back in action. So to get things rolling and at the request of some folks who visit the Farmer's market, I am posting a new series covering forage foods. Given the current geopolitical situation some of this information may come in handy in the not-to-distant future. Today’s forage specimen Wild Lettuce, a common garden weed that is quite available this time of the year.

The long leaves of Wild Lettuce are often mistaken for those of a Dandelion, but the latter is more angular than the former.

Note the different root structure, no central taproot and a lot of support roots.

 

Common Name: Wild Lettuce

Other Common Names: Prickly Lettuce, Milk Thistle*, Compass Plant, Scarole.

Botanical Family: Asteraceae (The Aster family)

Botanical Latin Name: Lactuca serriola (aka L. scariola)

Season to Harvest: Spring.

Habitat: Wild lettuce is commonly found in disturbed sites such as fields, by the road side, vacant lots and inevitably in your garden.

Parts to Harvest: The younger leaves are preferred as they are less likely to be bitter. You can eat the mature leaves if you have something to mitigate the bitter flavor like another leaf green in bulk or a decent dressing. Be mindful of this plant’s milky sap.

Poisonous Lookalikes: None known.

Related Edible Species: Canadian Wild Lettuce (L. Canadensis), will grow side-by-side with Wild Lettuce, lacks the prickly parts on the leaves and is more preferred.

Description: Wild lettuce is an annual or biennial herb that can grow to a height of almost six feet by the summer. It is related to Common Dandelions and Chicory and can be confused for either of them before it starts gaining height. The flowers of this plant are very similar to those of Dandelion but they are smaller and more numerous and borne at the top of the plant. Unlike Dandelion or Chicory, Wild lettuce does not for a singular primary taproot and instead forms a number of fibrous roots and a few short but supportive taproots that aid in keeping its eventual stalk steady.

How to Harvest: Harvest young leaves individually and wash as needed to clean them. I recommend sticking them in a bath of water for ten minutes to dilute out the milky latex sap that may come from the wounded side of the leaves.

Recipe: You can use this plant alone or with other greens in a salad, but you will need a robust-flavored vinaigrette. You can boil the leaves in a small amount of water for 2-3 minutes and then serve them with butter and seasonings of your choice. You can also make a field Vinaigrette that pairs well with these cooked leaves by doing the following;

 

Ingredients:

4 slices of bacon

¼ cup of Feta Cheese (if available, and preferably the Greek type)

½ cup of Vinegar

2 Teaspoons of Sugar (honey may also work)

1 Teaspoon of Salt

 

Preparation:

1.      Fry the strips of bacon into a crispy state.

2.      Heat the Vinegar.

3.      Crumble the bacon up and add it, the sugar and the salt into the hit but not boiling vinegar.

4.      Add the Feta cheese (if available) to the hot mix.

5.      Pour over unseasoned but cooked wild lettuce.

 

*Not the same plant as the actual Milk Thistle which is Silybum marianum.

 

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 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.

 

Produce:

Garlic Bulb, $1.00

Soup Kit – Parsnip, $6.00

Soup Kit – Turnip, $6.00

Seasoning Packet, $2.00

 

Houseplants:

Assorted Succulents, Plastic Pot - $5.00

Assorted Succulents, Round Resin Pot - $5.00

Assorted Succulents, Square Resin Pot - $5.00

Assorted Succulents, Hexagon Resin Pot - $10.00

Assorted Succulents, Lattice Resin Pot - $12.00

Assorted Succulents, Bomber Resin Pot - $15.00

Assorted Succulents, Clay Pot - $9.00

 

Garden Stuff: ($3.00 each)

Elephant Garlic

Softneck Garlic

Lettuce – Parris Island Romaine

Lettuce – Cherokee Red

Lettuce – Five Star Lettuce Mix

Beets – Bull’s Blood

Mustard – Red Giant

 

Coming Soon

Kale – Ragged Jack

Kale – Dinosaur

Kale – Tronchuda

Kale – Redbor

Celery – Tango

Kohlrabi – Grand Duke

 

 

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.

 

https://nextdoor.com/g/ybvdm226x/?is=nav_bar

 

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

 

The Videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/curacaovexxor/videos

>Newest videos (5): Chinese Money Plant, Red African Milk Bush, Pencil Cactus, Desert Rose, ‘Prehistoric’ Devils Backbone.

 

 

Meetings still going on! We now meet at LeClairs General Store on the First and Third Thursday of every month. Our next meeting is on March 16th between 5:30pm and 7:00pm. We are in the back room so come on in and join us for a fun garden chat.

The Genesis of a Viewpoint

Welcome back to another episode of Lost In The Farmer’s Market, where we take a look into varied topics regarding sustainability, horticulture and organic practices.  Now this week’s topic was supposed to cover a look at the diversity of the prickly pear family but due to non-

photogenic plant stock and some delays in writing this post the topic has changed just a little bit. Firstly, Easter is this upcoming Sunday and that is the unofficial last frost date in North Carolina. This means yes you can get out there and really start gardening like you mean it, but I would exercise some caution and be mindful of the weather forecasts as our weather has been a bit wobbly this year. Weather woes aside this week’s delayed topic has to do with something around which a lot of big industry revolves. I thought it’d be wise to cap off spring 2018 with a discussion of what defines a weed. You would think the definition of a weed was a very simplistic one but depending on whom you ask the definition varies widely. If you talk to an herbicide company (e.g. Ortho) the list is fairly broad it’s often anything that dares to compete with the grass in your lawn including some species of grass such as non-hybrid Bermuda grass. If you ask a lawn care company (e.g. Truegreen) they are going to tell you what the aforementioned herbicide company did, but they are also going to add to the list just to make an extra few bucks spraying for things that aren’t even a hazard. A third perspective which is much closer to the truth is that of an Agricultural technology college, where the definition is simply that a weed is ‘A plant that is in the wrong place’. This education-oriented answer is one I have personally espoused for a number of years because it is one of the fairer definitions. It is never the fault of a dandelion that it’s seed held aloft on tiny filaments landed where it did due to a fickle wind current. These things cannot be helped, you simply cannot sterilize every inch of soil nor deadhead every bloom or spray every ‘weed’. A perfect weed-free yard is physically impossible it’s an unattainable dream sold to the home owner by a corporate-industrial sales team that wants you to very much become reliant on their product.

But this leads to another interesting definition, and it is one that I think is the best way to define a weed. While I do not recall who said it, ‘A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.’ is an absolutely accurate definition. I would add in that a weed is also a plant whose virtues have been forgotten and are possibly so unprofitable for a corporation to market that it has been intentionally discredited. A good example of this can be potentially found in the Tropical Soursop which is a relative of the native Pawpaw and the equally tropical Cherimoya. Soursop is said to have anti-cancer compounds in it but the research on it’s efficacy is sparse at best. The big pharmaceutical companies can’t market it because they can’t patent a naturally occurring plant and they can’t reproduce its active compounds in a lab. So aside from providing fruit, it’s a plant that could be called a weed because there is no money to be made. I suppose this is the modern face of greed, it’s not about helping people it’s about making stacks of dollars with little regard to the suffering of others. This single-mindedness is abhorrent to me and I am not even a party to it; it is a vile sort of slow state of self-destruction. But, shaming the industry isn’t the point of this article, I want to introduce you to something some of you out there might find surprising.

Taraxicum officinale – True Medicinal Dandelion

This is a sign of the times, a true dandelion that was carefully dug out of the yard and nurtured from last fall through to now. Taken from a survive or die situation this perennial herb is stately when it’s getting all that it needs and it doesn’t have to struggle every day just to make due. It’s a far cry from some of the straggly ones you see in the yard isn’t it? I repotted this in late January and found it’s taproot was easily as big as it’s upper leaf mass. If you’ve never seen a Dandelion’s taproot let me tell you, it’s the color of a fresh parsnip, and can be curled, gnarled or perfectly straight and this one’s was curled and healthy. Some of you who read this are probably wondering why I’m even bothering to grow this. The answer is simple I tried to grow dandelions from French stock (richters seed, 2011) that was bred for big roots so that I could grow my own ingredients for stew (leaves), wine (flowers) and well coffee (roots) and virtually none of the seeds ever sprouted; the few that did simply didn’t make it very far as the southern heat scorched them into oblivion. I tried all kinds of things, with no success which is somewhat ironic because the Chicory (Chichorium intybus) seed that I ordered and grew from the same lot sprouted and is now a perennial feature in a section of a raised bed. I gave up on the dandelions for a while so that I might try other things but in the last two years, true dandelions started to appear in the yard voluntarily. Ironically, they are growing in the back yard where I mow very little and along side varying forms of Dock (Rumex sp.). The Dock family is also known as Sheep Sorrel which amongst weeds has had its virtues proven as it has a cousin that is a showy foliage-based garden perennial in the form of Bloody Dock (Rumex sanguinea). I admit to not knowing why or how the Dandelions suddenly started appearing and growing successfully but I would imagine our weather has something to do with it given that it’s been colder in the winter and warmer in the summer over the last decade or so. It may be that the cold was enough to allow seed that lay dormant in the soil for decades to finally sprout and these Dandelions have been here the whole time waiting for their chance.

On a personal level I’ve come to believe with good supporting evidence that the best definition of a weed is simple. A weed is something that represents all the things that money cannot control, it’s the source of medicine that cannot be owned that actually cures the ailments of the many while it also denies the accumulation of unnecessary wealth. As a final note on the topic I should note that in the Fayetteville area there are two very similar common garden ‘weeds’ that often get mistaken for dandelions. The first is called Prickly or Wild Lettuce (Lactuca canadensis) which is a member of the daisy family and is actually a wild cousin of the lettuce we buy at the market. Wild lettuce is edible but I do suggest consulting a credible publication on how to prepare it (see below).

 

Wild lettuce has a close relative called prickly lettuce, both are in the aster family.

Cat's Ear Dandelion is often more common than true dandelion in Fayetteville.

A second look-alike is the Cat’s Ear Dandelion (Hypochoeris radicata) which as far as I know can be used medicinally and may be edible. This comes with the proviso that you should thoroughly research the edibility of a given ‘weed’ and its preparation methods before you eat it. A good credible publication which I use to determine both edibility and preparation is the Field Guide To North American Edible Wild Plants by Thomas S. Elias & Peter A. Dykeman. I don’t know if this book is still in print but it should be available on Amazon or a similar online service as a hardcopy since it definitely predated the e-reader fad. This brings to a close the second post of March 2018 and while this post was delayed due to a internet outage, it’s better late than never given the circumstances and borrowing wifi.

For note this is where the advertising starts because it keeps the Test Garden’s supplied and running tests so you don’t have to. If you want to get some GMO-free, Organic vegetables, herbs and fruiting shrubs come on down to the Fayetteville City Market on 325 Maxwell Street in downtown Fayetteville between he Hours of 9:00 am and 1:00 pm on Saturdays. Barring bad weather, I’ll be there selling the following spring offerings while supplies last.

Plants Available Now:

Parris Island Romaine Lettuce – $3.00

Lacinato/Dinosaur Kale – $3.00

Italian Parsley – $3.00

Kohlrabi, Purple Vienna - $3.00

Chives - $3.00

Salad Burnet - $3.00

Savory - $3.00

English Thyme - $3.00

Oregano, Italian - $3.00

Fennel, Bronze - $3.00

Chamomile, Roman - $3.00

Rue - $3.00

Lavender, English - $3.00

Mulberry, Dwarf  (2 gal pot) - $15.00

Coming Soon:

Basil, Sweet Genovese (in April)

Swiss Chard

Sage

Santolina (aka Lavender-Cotton)

Hummingbird Mint, Golden Jubilee

Tomatoes

Peppers

Hops, Zeus

Hops, Cascade

Figs, (assorted) (0.5 Gallon pot)

Raspberry, Heritage (2 gallon pot)

If the market isn’t your thing or your schedule does not allow you to go there my premium exotic house plants can be purchased in attractive clay pots with unique embellishments at LeClair’s General Store. LeClair’s General Store is located on 1212 Fort Bragg Road in Fayetteville North Carolina.

This is their Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/leclairsgeneralstore/

The Visit NC page’s Listing:

https://www.visitnc.com/listing/leclair-s-general-store

These days I am generally at the store at least twice a week, maintaining stock and/or delivering new materials so if you go to visit the store there is a fair chance I’ll be present to answer your questions. If not, you can always send me questions through this blog or visit the farmer’s market or pay attention to what Sustainable Neighbors is doing at the link below.

https://www.meetup.com/SustainableNeighbors/

            This brings to a close the sixth LITFM post of the new year, stay tuned the next episode which should be posted roughly around the 4th of April assuming the internet outage issue is solved.