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.
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| This specimen is stretching to get to more light but is about 15" tall. |
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| As you can see the fluffy tufts are how the plant got it's rabbt/hare names. |
Common Name: Stone Clover
Other Common Names: Rabbitfoot Clover, Hare’s-Foot Clover, Oldfield Clover
Botanical Family: Fabaceae (The Legume Family)
Botanical Latin Name: Trifolium arvense
Season to Harvest: Mid to late spring.
Habitat: Typically you will find Stone Clover in vacant lots but it may also appear in maintained lawns that are note mowed frequently. The specimens photographed were by the roadside in a median that gets occasional at best moving and maintenance. Additionally you may find this plant at the edges of fields, in waste land, on sand dunes and in vineyards and orchards that are not irrigated. Stone clover does tend to prefer dry sandy soils but does not seem to care about the pH of the soils.
Parts to Harvest: The flowers are noted to be useful as a medicine to treat medical conditions related to the digestive system, genitourinary system and the skin.
Poisonous Lookalikes: None.
Related Edible Species: Red Clover (Trifolium pratense), is similar in appearance but has bright reddish-pink flowers, all parts of Red clover are edible.
Description: Stone Clover is an erect branched winter annual or in some climates a biennial that can get to about fifteen inches tall in ideal growing conditions. It has fairly hairy leaves and stems and can be identified by its pink-ish globe flowers which resemble the tips of a rabbit’s foot especially once the flowers are spent and the seed heads have formed. The leaf margins are smooth with tiny teeth-like projections at the leaf tips. This plant does provide some nectar and pollen for bees and does fix nitrogen in the soil. This plant is useful as ‘green manure’ and is a viable option for grazing goats and sheep.
How to Harvest: Pick individual flower globes as needed and either use fresh or dry and store in an airtight container for later use.
Recipe: For Stone clover I cannot find any information indicating any way to eat the foliage. However the traditional standard of 2-4 ounces of blossoms per cup of water is the best way to make a tea out of the flowers.
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.
Garden Stuff: ($3.00)
Basil – Emerald Tower
Chervil – French Parsley
Chives
Fennel - Black
Parsley – Italian
Parsley – Curled
Sage – Common
Tarragon – Mexican
Thyme – Common
Celosia – First Flame Purple
Castor Bean – Zanzibar
Cotton – Erlene’s Green Lint
Hibiscus – Luna Pink Swirl
Milkweed – Orange blooming
Milkweed – Milkmaid White
Tobacco – Flowering “Starmaker Apple Blossom”
Coming Soon:
Purple Heart
Vietnamese Cilantro
Pineapple Sage
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): Lily of the Nile, Mischief Strikes Again 3, Zinnias.
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 July 7th 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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