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.
Tradescantia viginiana or Widow's Tears is readily available in the sandhills of North Carolina. The test gardens have dozens of clumps of this plant that have volunteered. This plant is so prolific that control efforts have been less than effective and yet it's not invasive. 
Even over less than a few hundred square feet you will see some foliage color differences. 
Although not in bloom at the time that this picture was taken this specimen has sky blue color flowers.
Common Name: Widow’s Tears
Other Common Names: Virginia Spiderwort, Cow Slobber (LOL!), Indian Paint, Trinity Flower.
Botanical Family: Commelinaceae (The Dayflower Family)
Botanical Latin Name: Tradescantia virginiana
Season to Harvest: The best time to harvest is between spring and fall. Try to avoid harvesting in the winter as you may do more damage to your plants than you need to.
Habitat: Widow’s tears are typically found in lawns, garden beds, meadows, open woodlands, limestone outcrops, I should mention here that this is one of the few forage foods that actually pretty much cultivates itself in the wild and only gets better when intentionally cultivated. It is present across North America and grows in USDA hardiness zones 4-9. It tolerates wet soils and dry soils with equal vigor and is a perennial so it is a reliable source of forage greens. It also will grow in full sun or partial shade making it quite versatile. There is one other feature of this plant that is worth mentioning, it is Juglones tolerant which means it can be grown under and near Black Walnut trees.
Parts to Harvest: All parts of Widow’s Tears are edible. In a more practical sense however, you will be harvesting the leaves, stalks and flower buds and flowers.
Poisonous Lookalikes: None are known.
Related Edible Species: A few species of Tradescantia that are native to North America are edible to varied degrees.
Description: Widow’s Tears is a clump-forming plant that can get up to three feet tall in ideal growing conditions. The plant has thick succulent stems and bright green narrow leaves that form a V-shape when seen in a vertical cross-section. The key identification feature for these plants is the bright blue, purple, or sometimes white, pink or more rarely bicolor flowers that last only a day. The name Widow’s Tears comes from the appearance of the flowers at the end of the day after their petals have broken down and liquefied. The name Spiderwort comes from the overall shape of the plant which to some resembles a squatting spider.
As a historical note the genus name Tradescantia is named for John Tradescant the Younger (1608-1662) who was a naturalist and explorer who came to Virginia several times between 1628 and 1637. The plant we now call Widow’s Tears is one of the plants he noticed and brought back to England which became popular in gardens. However this was only the European side of things as the Cherokee and other Native American peoples used Widow’s Tears for a number of culinary and medicinal purposes. The plant’s young leaves were eaten in salads or were mixed with other greens and then fried or boiled until tender. The plant was mashed and then applied top insect bites to relieve irritation. A paste made from the pulverized roots was used to treat skin cancer while a tea made from the plant was utilized as a laxative and to treat stomach aches. Unfortunately in my search for information I was unable to locate the Native American name for Tradescantia virginiana.
Recipe: The first thing that needs to be mentioned is that Widow’s Tears have a mucilaginous sap, this goes away if you cook the greens. In terms of flavor though, the leaves of Widow’s Tears are at their best when eaten in their most tender state. This will be in the late winter through mid-spring. As the plant ages the greens become tougher and more fibrous which will be a reason to cook what you harvest if you harvest in the summer or fall. The stalks of Widow’s Tear can be cooked and eaten as an asparagus substitute minus the fiber or the urinary side-effects. Parts of this plant can be pickled for longer-term storage purposes. This leaves the flowers and the flower buds as the last parts not discussed. The flowers themselves are bland, like not even sweet however they do bring in pollinators and they are useful as a garnish. If you can collect enough of them they can produce an impressive color base for a dye. The flower buds are by some accounts the best part of the plant from both a flavor and a texture perspective. I recommend cooking them a bit like you would Broccoli Rabe, salt, pepper, a bit of garlic or onion and a little bit of water and oil. You would cook this blend in a skillet until you get to your preferred level of softness and maybe serve with pasta. Since there are no parts of the plant that can poison you, you are safe even if you undercook things.
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:
Garlic Bulbs
Soup Kit – Parsnip
Soup Kit – Turnip
Garden Stuff: ($3.00)
Brussel Sprouts - Redarling
Cauliflower – Snow Crown
Cauliflower – Flame Star
Celery - Tango
Cilantro – Vietnamese
Collards – Green Glaze
Hoan Ngoc
Mustard – Japanese Red Giant
Pak Choi – Rose’
Coming Soon:
House Plants (November-ish)
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 (3): Bat-Faced Cuphea
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 November 3rd between 5:30pm and 7:00pm. We are in the back room so come on in and join us for a fun garden chat.
Song Reference: "No More Tears" by Ozzy Osborne.
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