Definately not a Rubus Cube

 

Welcome back to the Lost In the Farmer’s Market blog. As some of you have noticed the blog has taken on a more formal instructional tone to cover the wide variety of forage foods that you can find all around you. This change came about due to the events of the pandemic, economic turmoil and other factors. The reality is that we are surrounded with perfectly edible plants that can fill at least some of the void in our dietary needs but, there is a multi-million dollar herbicide industry that exists. It has always been in the interest of that industry to label certain things ‘weeds’ so they can sell you product that as time goes by we find out is worse for your health than the weeds are. Coupled with an Agricultural-Education system that peddles the myths of the industry and the old myth that if you can afford a nice lawn you must have wealth we have a population that has been fooled for a long time. So, here we are in 2023, and the forage foods series will continue. I hope all of you who read this blog find the information useful or at least thought provoking. The ‘weeds’ I am listing a certainly found in Zone 8A in North Carolina and should certainly be easy to find in the Southeast regions of America. Oh, and one funny thing discovered in last year’s blog, it turns out you can eat Crab Grass, and while it isn’t what most would call a lawn grass, I did state you can’t eat your lawn in last year’s intro. Detailed research is a funny thing since it has a way of proving even the experts wrong. 

 

 

 

The flowers of Armenian Blackberry are quite visible and as I took this photo the pollinators were out in droves.

Armenian Blackberries are well equipped to fight other invasive species, the other flowers are from Privets.

As you can see here, sometimes Armenian Blackberries have three leaflets this is normal near the flowers.

 

 

Here we have the defensive features of members of the Rubus family. For note the canes will turn that red color when they are exposed to more sunlight, it's not any indicator if illness in the plant.

This cane has rooted where it touched the ground forming a new clump.

 

 

Common Name: Armenian Blackberry

 

Other Common Names: Himalayan Blackberry

 

Botanical Family: Rosaceae (The Rose Family)

 

Botanical Latin Name: Rubus armeniacus

 

Description & Habitat:  This member of the Rubus family of fruiting and often thorny bushes can be found in disturbed areas, on the margins of woodlands, near bodies of water or in areas where the water table is high. Additionally you might find it in ravines, fields, thickets and wherever it has escaped cultivation. It can tolerate full shade so do not be surprised if it’s growing deep in a forest somewhere. This species despite one of its common names is originally native to Armenia and Iran, but has been naturalized in many other parts of the world like North Carolina. It is a perennial plant that bears stems (aka canes) that are biennial that rise up from its perennial root system. Typically first year ‘canes’ will grow vigorously and can reach lengths of up to 13 to 32 feet if conditions are optimal, These canes can also arch above the ground up to 13 feet. Interestingly the stems if cut in cross-section may be roughly polygonal or hexagonal in shape. Flowers and fruits are produced on second-year canes and the flowers are considered bisexual (or perfect) in that they contain male and female parts. All branches can root from any node that touches the ground allowing this fruiting bush to effectively clone itself as well as reproduce from the seeds in its fruit. Also it has to be mentioned here that the fruit Armenian Blackberry produces are not actual berries but an aggregate fruit composed of numerous druplets. The leaves are best described as palmately compound in shape with either three or more leaflets with five being the most common number but up to six not being unheard of. The one thing that is common to blackberries in the wild is of course all the thorns. In some publications this plant is listed as Rubus bifrons, Rubus procerus or, Rubus discolor/discolores. This species was introduced to North American in 1885, because it produced larger and sweeter berries than prior blackberry types like Rubus fruticosus. Either way, this blackberry escaped cultivation around 1915, and in some places it has been declared an invasive species because of its aggressive spread.

 

When & What to Harvest: Look for flowers in late spring and the fruit should follow by Early to mid-summer.

 

Poisonous Lookalikes: None known.

 

Related Edible Species: Common Blackberry (Rubus allagheniensis), Black Raspberry  (Rubus occidentals), Rubus ursinus, Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus), Wineberry (Rubus phoenicolasius), Red Raspberry (Rubus idaeus variety strigosus).

 

Recipe: There is simply no shortage of ways to use the berries from the Rubus family. Preparation can be as simple as washing them and lightly sprinkling them with sugar or a little bit of honey. The addition of fresh cream to that mix or, yogurt and you have yourself a delicious treat that is healthy as hell. A good recipe for black or Raspberries is to make Berry Bannock.

 

Ingredients:

2 Cups of Flour.

3 Tablespoons of Double-Acting Baking powder.

½ Teaspoon of Salt.

6 Tablespoons of Butter.

4 Tablespoons of Half & Half.

1 Cup of ripe washed berries.

1/3 Cup of water.

 

How to make the good stuff!

1.      Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, butter and half and half until the mix has a uniform texture.

2.      Add the washed berries.

3.      Mix gently to make sure all the fruit is uniformly coated in the mixture.

4.      Add the water to make the mixture into workable dough.

5.      Shape the mixture into roughly 1” thick cake and then dust with flour.

6.      Place the mix into a warmed and greased frying pan.

7.      Cover and cook over moderate heat until a light crust forms on the bottom of the pan.

8.      Turn and cook as needed until golden brown in color and none of the dough sticks to a fork or knife inserted through the center of the dough.

9.      It’s Eating time!

 

This recipe is adapted from its listing in Edible Wild Plans of North America by Elias & Dykeman.

 

 

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 2:00 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

 

Coming Soon:

Spring Garden Plants are due in March 18^th 2023.

 

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):Cat Grass,

 

Meetings are 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 March 18^th between 5:30pm and 7:00pm. We are in the back room so come on in and join us for a fun garden chat.

 

Spring Showers bring...soaked gardeners

Welcome to the glory of spring and the promise of summer! We are reapidly approaching that point in the year when the grass demands mowing, the birds are out there singing like crazy and the soil is warm enough to support your summer crops. The rain is regular, the nights are cool and the mosquito population isn’t quite up and running. In short it’s one of the best times of the year to be a gardener. The test gardens themselves are rapidly evolving into something of a state of unmatched beauty as the dormant plants for the most part are awakened and going about business. Much has been done but even more remains to be done and that brings us to another episode of Lost in the Farmer’s Market.

Before I start into the details of our first test of the year, I’d like to share some pictures from the gardens that I thought you might enjoy.

Yellow German Bearded Iris  (Iris germanica)in all it's glory, these guys are so bright, you can see them from across the property.

Exploding ourward in a ball of blooms is the inflorescence of the herb Chives or Allium schoenoprasum.

Even the blackberries are in the springtime act as they are coated in blooms, The bloom also reveals that blackberries are in the rose family

As you may have heard the first experiment of the 2013 year was a growth comparison between various soil mixtures to see what if any effect the use of Bio-char would have on a basic crop. In the case of our test we used four Radicchio plants of similar size, and created four different soil mixes one of which was spiked with a set amount of bio-char. Photos were taken at three-day intervals to visually chart the subject plant’s growth and at the end of the study the plants were each measured for width and height. Notes regarding observations on soil moisture retention, and overall vigor and color were also kept just for the sake of later review. I might add the Radicchio plants selected were of a dark red variety for the express purpose of determining health and nutrient deficiency.

03-22-2013 - A motley bunch they are, but then again for Bonnie plants which are notoriously under-developed not too bad.

03-28-2013 - The end of their first week and all is well

04-02-2013

04-08-2013 - From this point on most of the test plants get over their exposure caused coloration and start shifting back to green.

04-14-2013 - This was about when I realized the soil mixture seemed to be trying out every other day you can see the odd downward pucker in all the plants.

04-20-2013 - I goofed a bit on this one, you can see my boot in the picture.

04-26-2013 - The last day of the trial. It is clear the compost soils beat the pants off the coco fiber soil.

As a side note not a single one of these plants was given fertilizer, just rainwater from the rain barrel nearby. It's a funny thought but these photos also show a sort of time-lapse display of the weeds growing below, and it's funny to see whats down there. How many can you Identify?

In case you were wondering, in the picture from left to right the plants had the following soil mixtures; Coir fiber soil mix, straight compost, Compost with worm castings added, and Compost with worm castings and bio-char. It is also clear through the alternating sequence of pictures that the compost, castings and bio-char plant developed faster and was larger. Now obviously this was just a test to see the relative effectiveness of such a treatment, but at least in a laboratory setting bio char seems to clearly do something. In fact as far as leaf greens are concerned if I could get a hold of enough of the bio char to do a planting row test using winter crops I’d gladly do so. In short I do think the Bio-char is useful; there is also evidence to suggest its introduction alone has a clear and visible effect on plants.

I might add as an afterthought once the trial was over the radicchio plants were repotted into bowl planters so they could grow on and hopefully make a good salad item later. They currently reside on the front porch and the root development in all the compost plants was noticeably better then that of the plant in the coir fiber mix. The bio-char plant however had only marginally better root growth as compared to the other compost types which suggests that bio char may make additional nutrients available in amounts that encourage steady growth. Stay tuned for our next trial which is the creation of a anti-erosion berm.

Just as a note to all you readers out there, I will have a table at the Fayetteville Farmer’s Market this weekend. The Market is located on 325 Franklin Street, and will be open on Saturday between the hours of 9am to 1pm. As with the last two weeks I’ll be present and teamed up with the Sustainable neighbors, so you can come on by the sustainability booth and get some cool info and ask any garden questions you might have. As promised here is the plant list of what will be available for sale at the booth.

Cucumbers & Melons: Kiwano (2x), Armenian Cucumber (1x), Poona Kheera Cucumber (1x).

Leaf Greens: Red-Leaf Amaranth (3x), Turkish Rocket (4x).

Herbs: Blue African Basil (2x), Siam Basil (2x).

Ornamentals: Castor Bean “Red Weed” (3x)

Fruit: Strawberry (1x).

Tomatoes: Heirloom Cherry Mix (5), San Marzano (6x), Gold Rush Currant (1x), Red Currant (1x), Red & Yellow Currant Mix (1x), Sweet Pea Currant (1x), Mexican Midget (1x), Solar Fire (1x), Underground Rail Road (1x).

Eggplant: Nyakati (2x), Early Black Egg (1x), Turkish Italian Orange (2x), Louisiana Long Green (2x).

Potatoes: Dark Caribe (5x), Carola (5x)

As you can see we’ve got some good stuff coming to the table this weekend but in the following weeks as things mature out on the growing Plot more will become available. Also, I might add that copies of the book Southward Skies will be available at the booth also.

That last brings a close to our first post in the month of May. I hope to see you all at the market and barring that stay tuned here to find out the results of our field tests and other cool stuff. Thank you for reading and as always keep ‘em growin!