Greetings and Salutations to all you intrepid gardeners out there, welcome back to another installment of the Forage Foods series on Lost In The Farmer’s Market. As you might already know the current Geo-Political situation coupled with inflation and supply shortages has prompted a series on foods you can forage for just in case things go sideways. Even if they don’t, forage foods may have added nutritional benefits and may also have medicinal benefits that can help you out.
Say what you want, the Carolina False Dandelion is a pretty nice looking plant as far as forage foods go and it's fairly prolific in the test gardens. It is hard to believe that 'pyrrhopappus' basically translates to 'Fire-Fluff' or something close but when I get a picture of the flowers you'll see what I mean.
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| Is that a Taproot or are you happy to see me? What? Oh it's a...darn. |
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| This one seems to have settled in right next to my stone bench and a large potted plant in the test gardens. Note that all three specimens photographed for this post are all slightly different in terms of how much lobe is present in their leaf margins. |
Common Name: Carolina False Dandelion
Other Common Names: Carolina Desert Chicory, Texas Dandelion.
Botanical Family: Asteraceae (The Aster Family)
Botanical Latin Name: Pyrrhopappus carolinianus
Season to Harvest:
Habitat: Carolina False Dandelion is a winter annual or a biennial plant that appears in disturbed sites such as pastures or fields. I can also commonly occur in your garden next to hard surfaces like in the soil next to a planter, beside the brickwork of a patio and rarely in hanging baskets.
Parts to Harvest: The leaves, root and flowers can all be harvested and there are no poisonous parts to worry about. This plant can be poisonous to horses however.
Poisonous Look-alikes: None in the continental USA.
Related Edible Species: Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), Cat’s Ear Dandelion (Hypochoeris radicata) Wild Lettuce (Lactuca canadensis) and, Virginia Dwarf Dandelion (Krigia virginica).
Description: This member of the Aster family forms a basal rosette much like Dandelion does and has a taproot. The leaves can be hairy in some specimens however the ones in the test garden that volunteered seem to have smooth somewhat glossy leaves. The leaves are somewhat lobed and instead of the sharply angular leaves you might associate with a relative of a Dandelion these plants have slight widely spaced serrations. In short the leaves look like what would happen if a normal Dandelion decided to be sort of flat looking and totally boring. This plant’s leaves can be up to 6” long and these plants can be up to 1-3’ tall.
How to Harvest: Leaves can be harvested at almost any time the plant is present and growing while flowers once newly opened can be used to make an alternative to Dandelion Wine. The taproot can be dug in late fall to get their peak sweetness and flavor.
Recipe: Although the following might sound like a cop-out seriously this Dandelion relative can be used in all the same recipes that traditional dandelion can be used in. It’s noticeably less bitter than Dandelions are which makes it a great leaf green for moderating more ‘flavorful’ green’s effects on your forage cooking.
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:
Okinawa Spinach - $5.00
Cuban Oregano, Large leaf - $4.00
Abutilon ‘Orange Hot Lava’ - $4.00
Garden Stuff: ($3.00)
Tomato - Glacier
Tomato – Sungold
Peppers – Ghost
Elephant Garlic
Softneck Garlic
Lettuce – Parris Island Romaine
Lettuce – Cherokee Red
Lettuce – Five Star Lettuce Mix
Beets – Bull’s Blood
Mustard – Red Giant
Kale – Dinosaur
Kale – Redbor
Kale – Ragged Jack
Coming Soon:
More Peppers
More Tomatoes
Herbs!
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 (-): -New Content coming soon.
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 21st between 5:30pm and 7:00pm. We are in the back room so come on in and join us for a fun garden chat.
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