Lost in the Farmers Market

Welcome to the LITFM weekly blog. This blog is a text-based complement to the LITFM YouTube channel and covers the forage food side of gardening. It is my goal to make gardening and forage food accessible for all while promoting good land stewardship and sustainable practices by providing honest and balanced information backed by verifiable scientific fact. Since this blog now focuses on wild plants or ‘weeds’ we will be taking an objective look at them and their uses. Thank you for reading.

Thursday, March 31, 2022

The best of Plantains mislaid!

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.

This lone specimen shows the basic leaf shape, the fuzzy flower stalks and the general morphology.

Here we have a cluster of plantains found near the Cape Fear River in Fayetteville NC. They look pretty good honestly.

This is a cultivated specimen in the test gardens. It gets fertilizer and irrigation and looks pretty good most of the year except in the hottest days of the summer.

Common Name: Buckhorn Plantain

Other Common Names: Ribwort Plantain, Narrowleaf Plantain, English Plantain, Ribleaf, Lamb’s Tongue, Buckhorn.

Botanical Family: Plantaginaceae (The Plantain Family)

Botanical Latin Name: Plantago lanceolata

Season to Harvest: Buckhorn Plantain is viable for harvest in spring, summer and fall.

Habitat: You can find Buckhorn Plantain in the southeastern United States on road sides, disturbed sites in lawns and in yards. It is fairly common and easily identified.

Parts to Harvest: Young leaves are preferred but see the ‘how to harvest section or how to deal with older tougher leaves. Seeds can be harvested and ground to make a flour substitute.

Poisonous Look-alikes:

Related Edible Species: Plantain (Plantago major) is it’s more well-known cousin; both plants are interchangeable when it comes to forage. Seaside Plantain (P. juncoides) is said to be the best tasting of the plantain species. Plantains are not at all related to cooking Bananas (aka plantains), they just share a name because the leaves likely looked similar to someone at some point.

Description: Buckhorn Plantain is a perennial herb with a fibrous root system that has leaves that are lanceolate in shape that have a short petiole. The flowers of this plant are borne on leafless stalks that have silky hairs. The flowers are tiny and usually cream white. The flowers merge from a clustered structure that resembles a spadix.

How to Harvest: Pick young leaves either before the flower stalk emerges or before leaves develop their tough fibers. You can also strip ripe seed from the flower stalks in late spring through fall for grinding into flour.

Recipe: The tenderest leaves can be used in a basic forage salad with little other preparation older leaves can be treated as a cooked vegetable. You can prepare tougher plantain leaves as a vegetable by soaking them in salt water for about 5 minutes and then boiling them until they are tender but not overdone. A beverage can be made from the leaves can be made by steeping a chopped cup of leaves in four cups of boiling water for a half hour or longer. The finished product will of course loose some water but sweetened with honey or sugar will make for a pleasant tea of sorts. The seeds once dried can be ground into flour, but that four can be used to make some pretty impressive forage pancakes. Combine 2 cups of plantain seed flour with three teaspoons of baking powder, ½ teaspoon salt, 2 eggs, 3tablespoons oil, 3 tablespoons sugar or honey and 1 cup of milk. Mix all aforementioned ingredients thoroughly until you have a batter of even consistency. This batter can be used to make pancakes and with foraged persimmon, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries or figs it makes for a satisfying meal. I should note this batter recipe can also be used to coat lily buds and young unfurled hosta leaves for frying.

I should note here that Plantains are noted for several medicinal uses however the only one I feel safe mentioning here is the first aid use. Plantain leaves if briefly chewed to to crush up the leaves into a cud-like lump and then applied to a wasp or bee sting will alleviate pain and swelling. I have personally used this field first aid trick and it does work.

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.

Special Stuff:

Rhubarb, 5yr Crown – $12.00

Rhubarb, 3yr Crown - $8.00

Garden Stuff: ($3.00)

Elephant Garlic

Softneck Garlic

Lettuce – Parris Island Romaine

Lettuce – Cherokee Red

Lettuce – Five Star Lettuce Mix

Beets – Bull’s Blood

Mustard – Red Giant

Kale – Beira

Kale – Dinosaur

Kale – Redbor

Kale – Ragged Jack

Coming Soon:

Abutilon ‘ Orange Hot Lava’

Okinawa Spinach

Cuban Oregano, Large leaf

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 April 7^th between 5:30pm and 7:00pm. This upcoming meeting is the big yearly seed swap which is back after almost two years of covid madness. You don’t have to bring seeds to join in so come on down and let’s fill up LeClairs! We are in the back room so come on in and join us for a fun garden chat.

Friday, March 25, 2022

It's not a Dandelion

Asiatic Hawksbeard isn't an unattractive weed as it's neat curled foliage would look pretty nice in a cultivated form next to some hosta.

Common Name: Asiatic Hawksbeard

Other Common Names: Oriental False Hawksbeard, Rocketweed.

Botanical Family: Asteraceae (The Aster Family)

Botanical Latin Name: Youngia japonica

Season to Harvest: You can harvest the young leaves of this perennial plant year-round.

Habitat: Asiatic Hawksbeard appears in sites of soil disturbance but may appear in vacant lots, I get them in my garden every year in somewhat randomly but they always appear at the fringe of cultivated areas and occasionally in planters left out over the winter.

Parts to Harvest: The parts of this plant you want are young leaves which are edible just like dandelion greens. Older leaves have to be prepared like a potherb which means a little bit of cooking.

Poisonous Look-alikes: Asiatic Hawksbeard is fairly unique, poisonous lookalikes are unlikely.

Related Edible Species: There are two other plants in the Youngia grouping, Y. japonica ssp. elstonii and Y. japonica ssp. longiflora. Neither relative is known to be invasive or weedy. Both species are believed to be equally edible however I have not encountered either in the wild to test this so be careful.

Description: Asiatic Hawksbeard is often mistaken for Cat’s Ear Dandelion (Hypochaeris radicata), or Carolina False Dandelion (Pyrrhopappus carolinianus) or even Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale). The difference is that Asiatic Hawksbeard is often comparatively dainty. Most specimens will likely be less than six inches in diameter. In optimal conditions these plants can get as five feet tall (with flower stalk) with a spread of up to eighteen inches. The leaves are slightly fuzzy and may have reddish coloration. Leaf margins are lobed with leaflets sometimes curling over each other. This is a rosette forming plant so compactness is expected. It is suggested that Asiatic Hawskbeard may have antiviral compounds in its sap and may or may not have some anti-cancer capabilities.

How to Harvest: Ideally you want to pick younger softer leaves when you can. Since this plant is in the aster family and not too distantly related to Dandelions the older leaves are edible if cooked slightly.

Recipe: Setting aside the use of Asiatic Hawksbeard as an addition to a forage salad or as trail nibble, cooking it as a potherb is fairly easy. Harvest a cup of this perennial’s leaves and wash them. Chop the leaves to the desired texture and add to two cups of boiling water. Add butter, salt and pepper to taste or hot peppers if you want some extra kick. Cook for about two or three minutes to tenderize the leaves properly and serve with rice if possible.