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, December 19, 2024

Miner's Lettuce

This picture is courtesy of Mary's Heirloom Seeds who had the best picture of Claytonia. It's a bit early to grow it in the Carolinas right now so stay tuned and I'll have a video about it in 2025.

Common Name: Miner’s Lettuce

Other Common Names: Rooreh, Indian Lettuce, Winter Purselane.

Botanical Family: Monticeae (The Claytonia Family)

Botanical Latin Name: Clatonia perfoliata

Description & Habitat: Miner’s Lettuce is a succulent plant with slender green stems that grow through the centers of circular leaves on flowering stems. Non-flowering stems can have leaves with a heart shape to them. Non-mature plants can display an array of leaf shapes no part of this plant is toxic or poisonous and this plant is native to the Western Mountain and Coastal regions of North America. This forage-ready plant prefers a cool and damp but not constantly wed environment and the plant will often emerge after the first heavy rains of the year. Miner’s Lettuce is a cold to cool season annual that will readily resow itself and is available in seed form through numerous credible seed vendors with good regularity. Plants can grow about 12 inches tall and flowers are small and pink or white colored. This plant is tied into American history because it was of great important to miner’s health during the California Gold Rush. During Late winter and early spring it was hard for miners to find foods that were rich in Vitamin C and so Miner’s Lettuce became associated with prospectors and warded off Scurvy which is caused by a severe deficiency of Vitamin C in one’s diet. Scurvy as an illness was known as far back as Ancient Egypt however Vitamin C itself was not isolated until 1928 and then was called Hexuronic Acid. The California Gold rush was between 1848 and 1855 so the miners might have known something about Scurvy but possibly not what caused it or how to treat it in specific. It is estimated that about 10,000 men died of Scurvy during the California Gold Rush, part of which was due to ships having to take the long route around the southernmost tip of South America because the Panama Canal would not even be started by the French until 1881. The United State would not acquire the Canal until 1904, and we would not finish it until 1914. So the long trip across the sea and land was partially to blame for making Scurvy so prevalent during the time period. So, how does Miner’s lettuce play into all this? Miner’s lettuce once known as a way to ward off Scurvy may have saved thousands of lives and became a part of the diet of Gold Rush miners.

When & What to Harvest: In the winter and into spring the foliage of this plant is edible and nutritious.

Non-Dangerous Lookalikes: The heart shaped leaves of this plant do somewhat resemble members of the Violet (Viola sp.) family such as English Violet (Viola odorata).

Related Dangerous Species: None are known.

Recipe: This plant is safe enough to be eaten as the main ingredient of a salad in raw form. It also can be cooked like spinach and its flavor is similar when cooked.

Additional Information: (If applicable)

https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=clpe

(Note, the above link has a error on the page where it says Miner's lettuce is in the Portulaca family, it's not in that family.)

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 my 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.

Fresh Foods:

Soup Kit – Parsnip

Soup Kit – Turnip

Garlic Bulbs

Blue Oyster Mushrooms

Soil Amendment Products:

Live Mushroom Compost – 18 Gallon Tote*

Live Mushroom Compost – 3 Gallon Bag

Live Mushroom Compost – 1 Gallon Bag

House Plants for the Holidays:

Abutilon

Aloe, American

Begonia, Sindbad

Cuban Oregano, Large Leaf

Hoan Ngoc

Pothos, Cebu Blue

Rose Campion

Selaginella

Solanum uleanum

Sorrel, Raspberry Dressing

Swiss Cheese Plant

*The 18 gallon tote is by special order only and is delivered to any address within the Fayetteville city area.

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 (-): [The channel is on Hiatus until 2025]

Meetings are still going on! Our next (unofficial) meeting is December 21^st at the Fayetteville City Market at 325 Franklin Street between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm.

Thursday, December 5, 2024

Pretty In Pink - Pink Dandelions

Pink Dandelions are somehow a heck of a lot cheerier looking. This photo btw is from the Experimental Farm Network.

Common Name: Pink Dandelion

Other Common Names: None Known

Botanical Family: Asteraceae (The Aster Family)

Botanical Latin Name: Taraxacum pseudoroseum

Description & Habitat: This species of Dandelion is native to Central Asia, but is noted to be far less likely to go invasive by several sources. You probably won’t just find it in the landscape unless someone cultivated it prior and it is persisting on its own. Given the glut of seed vendors selling the seeds for this plant this year, it is possible going forward you may find this plant in folk’s gardens. Overall Pink Dandelions look like their more common cousin (T. officinale), but have a flower that has a yellow center and pink outer petals. For all intents and purposes these plants are a perennial in USDA zones 3+ and prefer partial shade (4-6 hours) and need a well-drained soil and have a preference for soils rich in Nitrogen and Potassium and likely have a significant bit of organic matter. Growing them from seed follows the same process as growing any other Dandelion, you surface sow the seeds shallowly and they should germinate within 5-10 days at an air temperature of 45-75 degrees. Pink Dandelions bloom from about April to July and might bloom again in the fall if the weather is good. Additionally, Pink Dandelions attract pollinators and are a strong source of Vitamin A. On a strictly herbal/medicinal side of things it is known that these dandelions have all the same medicinal and herbal uses as their common cousin. For those who don’t know Dandelions help with Liver and Gallbladder conditions as well as helping to flush the Kidneys.

When & What to Harvest: You can harvest the leaves, flowers and later in the season, the root to obtain edible greens and flowers, or use the flowers to brew wine. The root can be roasted and ground up as a caffeine-free coffee substitute or used to make medicinal tinctures and tonics.

Non-Dangerous Lookalikes: There are a lot of plants that look like a dandelion and most of them are in the Aster family and may, or may or have milky latex sap. Wild Lettuce, Chicory, Carolina Desert Chicory, Common Dandelions, Cat’s Ear Dandelions all are visually similar.

Related Dangerous Species: None are known.

Recipe:

Basic Dandelion Wine

Ingredients:

7 cups of Dandelion Flowers*

1 Gallon of hot water

2 pounds of unbleached sugar

3 Teaspoons of Acid Blend

¼ Teaspoon of Tannin

½ Teaspoon of Yeast Energizer

1 Campden Tablet, crushed.

1 package Wine yeast (Use K1V-1116 by Lalvin)

1 pound of Golden Raisins.

(Starting S.G. should be 1.090-95)

Instructions:

1. Collect the blossoms when they are fully open on a sunny day

2. Remove any green parts.

3. Thoroughly wash all flowers to make sure they are cleansed of foreign debris.

4. Heat water and put flowers and raisins in a cotton fabric strainer bag.

5. Put strainer bag in your primary fermenter and pour the hot (but not boiling) water over the bag.

6. Stir in the sugar and then add all other ingredients EXCEPT for the yeast.

7. Cover/seal your primary fermenter and allow it to sit for 24 hours.

8. After 24 hours prepare yeas as per the directions on the packet and add to fermenter.

9. Stir daily and check the SG, when the SG reaches 1.040 (3-5 days) thoroughly wash your hands, and squeeze the bag to release more juices into the fermenting fluids.

10. Syphon the fluids in the fermenter into a glass jug secondary that has an airlock.

11 when ferment is completed (SG is 1.000, about 3 weeks) syphon off to a clean secondary and attach a new airlock.

12 syphon off to a new fermenter in two months and again if needed until the wind is clear before you bottle it.