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.
This picutre was taken in early spring, some Shiny Cudweed popped up around the dead stem of what was one of last year's pepper plants in a three gallon pot. 
If exposed to fertilizer Shiny Cudweeds can get surprisingly large and forget they are supposed to be a neat little basal rosette. I suspect intentionally cultivating them probably makes them even more tender.
Common Name: Shiny Cudweed
Other Common Names: Gray Everlasting
Botanical Family: Asteraceae (The Aster Family)
Botanical Latin Name: Gamochaeta coarctata (Formerly Gnaphalium spicatum)
Season to Harvest: Spring through Autumn.
Habitat: Shiny cudweed is found in open areas with sandy soils as well as sites with disturbed soil. However if you are a gardener you may find that it has gotten into your outdoor potted plants.
Parts to Harvest: The leaves.
Poisonous Lookalikes: None
Related Edible Species: Purple Cudweed (G. purpureum)
Description: Shiny Cudweed is a erect annual or biennial plant with a very obvious rosette of leaves that have a shiny bright green upper surface and a finely hairy underside that is white in color. The leaves are roughly ovate in shape and are quite broad. All leaves are of roughly the same size overall. Flower stalks have whiteish stems with small bright green leaves on them while the flower heads can be brown or purple in color.
How to Harvest: Pick leaves as needed.
Recipe: This plant is either a straight forage green, which means you can pick the leaves wash them and eat as needed since it has a mild flavor and crunchy leaves that have easily digestible fiber. Alternately you can add it to a forage salad as a primary foundational leaf green to balance out other more strongly flavored greens.
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:
Pepper, Lemon Drop
Pepper, Fayetteville Inferno
Pepper, Sweet Heat
Figs, Assortment (White Ishcia, Magnolia,)
Garden Stuff: ($3.00)
Cilantro – Vietnamese
Cuban Oregano – Cervesa & Lime
Fennel – Black
Hoan Ngoc
Sage – Pineapple
Sage – Common
Angelonia – Serenita Raspberry
Cuphea – Siracha Rose
Milkweed – Orange blooming
Coming Soon:
Thai Mint
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 (4): - Chervil, Mugwort, Artemisia, Wall Germander
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 August 18th 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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