Crimson Clover

Trifolium incarnatum (Fabaceae)

Crimson clover is a wonderfully versatile plant. It is grown for hay, silage, and pasture for animals; and as a winter cover crop for orchards and fallow fields. Early spring it graces road sides and pastures as a brilliant flame of a wildflower. And it adapts readily to the garden as a nitrogen fixer, a source of organic matter, and as a showy quick fill flower. Crimson clover is also much loved by bee keepers as it provides superior nectar that makes great tasting honey. And bees love it. If you grow fruit or vegetables that depend on insect pollination, successive plantings of Crimson clover will keep the little buzzing darlings visiting your yard or orchard. Crimson clover also has a nostalgic appeal. Tommy James and the Shondells made Crimson Clover famous with their 1968 song, “Crimson and Clover.”

Crimson clover is not too picky about how much sun it gets, but to be happy it does need at least 4 hours a day. It is not picky about soil either, in fact, it is often grown to improve poor soils. Crimson clover can be broadcast over fallow fields or garden beds in the fall and allowed to grow through the winter. Turning it under in spring will improve your soil for next summers garden or field crops. And if you can wait until it flowers before you turn it under, oh what a lovely show you will have.

In my yard and garden I primarily use Crimson clover as a filler flower in my borders and beds. It grows quickly, produces awesome flowers, and fixes nitrogen while it is making me smile. And nothing much could be easier. I purchase a quarter pound of seed at a time. (It’s less than a dollar at most feed stores.) And I simply broadcast the seed into empty spots in my borders and beds. Crimson Clover happily inter-grows with flowers, perennials, and vegetables. If it begins crowding it’s neighbors it is easy to pull or cut, and it makes an excellent addition to compost or mulch. (Crimson clover has a reputation for being invasive, however I have seen absolutely no sign of self sowing or spreading in my yard.) Warm weather sowings will require regular watering to get established, and will begin producing flowers in 45 to 60 days. Winter sowings won’t flower until early spring, but they require no irrigation or other fussing. Noting much could be easier. In the winter I even toss the seeds into bare spots in the lawn. Crimson clover will take some mowing, and I am rewarded with red blossoms amidst the grass, English daisies and white clover in the early spring.

There are more garden worthy clovers you can grow from seed, and some specialty ornamental clovers that you must seek out as nursery plants. First, here are the ones that you can grow from seed:

White Clover, Trifolium repens, is grown as a perennial used for orchard and garden ground cover, animal forage, winter cover, and as a nitrogen fixer and a source of organic matter. It spreads by runners and seeds. It can compete with Bermuda grass and win! Most of my side garden is inter-planted with white clover and it makes an excellent companion to my squash, tomatoes, and other plants. It improves the soil, provides good quality organic matter; acts as a living mulch - retaining moisture and keeping the soil cool in summer. During the winter the roots and leafy cover prevent the rain from compacting and eroding the soil. White clover is great for gardens, and it is edible and medicinal too. The flowers and leaves can be eaten raw or cooked. Consider adding them to soups, salads, or summer time sun-tea. There are several varieties of White Clover, ask at your local farm supply, nursery, or feed store to find which one is best suited for your needs and our site.

Red clover, Trifolium pratense, sports classic clover blooms in shades of pink and rose. These attractive perennial plants are grown for pasture, hay, as nitrogen fixing cover crops and as medicinal herbs. You can buy dried Red Clover flowers at most herb shops, they make a pleasant healthful tea. Or you can grow your own as easily as any other clovers. They need a bit of room to spread out. And they are happy in sun or part shade. There are also several varieties of Red Clover available, with a range of plant sizes and bloom colors.

Pink Clover, Trifolium rubens, is primarily an ornamental perennial. It grows from 18 to 24 inches tall and sports mauve to pink flowers similar to Crimson Clover. They look great in arrangements or in the flower bed.

Here are a couple of specialty ornamental clovers that must be sought out at the nursery:

Dark Dancer features deep purple leaflets edged in bright green. Instead of the normal three leaflets this lucky little guy often sports four, and is commonly sold as a Shamrock around St. Patrick’s Day.

Dragons Blood Clover is another little ground cover. This one has three leaflets each marked in cream, green, and red. It makes a great accent for a taller potted plant or a shady nook in the garden.


Sources:
If you can’t find the clovers your heart desires at local nurseries, feed stores, or farm supplies, you can order by mail, phone, or Internet:
Bountiful Gardens has seed for red, white, and crimson clovers. (707) 459-6410 http://BountifulGardens.org
Pink clover plants are carried by Digging Dog Nursery (707) 937-1130 http://www.diggingdog.com/ and the seeds can be ordered from: http://www.thompson-morgan.com
Dark Dancer and Dragons Blood clovers can be found at: Big Dipper Farm, (360) 886-8133 http://www.bigdipperfarm.com/

Crimson Clover Photos are available on line:
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/wildseed/24/24.8.html
http://www.oregonclover.org/crimsonclover.html

Stay Tuned, next time we will be getting ready to grow some Kohlrabi, a very tasty treat. Meanwhile, when I am not hiding from the heat at the creek, you can find me out in the garden, Digging the Dirt.

Copyright 2006 Harvest McCampbell, from my column "Digging the Dirt," published in The Hoopa Valley People Newspaper, August 2, 2006. Posted here with permission.

Chive Flavor, Chive Flare

This old fashioned garden and kitchen standby has found new life in today’s up scale cuisines. You know the food I am talking about. When you look at the photos in elegant magazines, or when it is presented to you in fancy restaurants you are confronted with something that looks more like art then something to eat. All those tiny colorful leaves, strange shaped and hued tomatoes, spikes, weaves, bundles and ties. And the price tag is likely to give you indigestion.

Chives are much esteemed in the new cuisine. Mature chive plants provide tasty long flexible narrow leaves. When slightly wilted they make perfect edible ties for lettuce or cabbage rolls and for weaving an edible mat or basket. When kept cool and crisp, they can add spiky sculptural appeal to savory dishes that include a thick sauce or a dab of sour cream to hold them in place. (And a dab is probably all you will get. This up scale cuisine tends to be heavy on presentation and low on calories.)

If this all sounds like food from another planet, be sure to check out Bon Appetit, Gourmet, and Saveur magazines next time you are near a well stocked magazine rack. It is a rare day that you can thumb through an issue of any gourmet cooking magazine with out finding a recipe that showcases chive flare or flavor.

And chives are so easy to grow! While they are happiest in the ground, growing in at least part sun, they can be coaxed to make their homes in containers. They will grow in sunny windows, on porches, in full sun or part shade, and they can take some drought stress once established.


There are a number of varieties of chives available, from very fine leaved to the larger broader varieties. You can also find garlic chives in two different sizes, as well as a close chive relative called Chinese Leek Flower that I am dying to try. (It has small edible flower buds long narrow leaves.) Chives can be started any time of year, from seed or from young plants often available at nurseries. Plants started or purchased during the winter will need to be kept in a sunny window until spring. (Chives grown outside will normally go dormant in the winter, except in the very mildest of climates.)

Chives grown from seed are best started in a pot or other well drained container. The tiny seedlings resemble thin blades of grass and are easy to lose track of in the garden. Chives grow very slowly from seed. It may be a year or more before they have grown enough to withstand cutting for kitchen use. If you are impatient seek out plants at local nurseries. If you can find them in gallon sized containers, you can begin cutting your chives almost immediately.

Any ordinary garden soil will suit chives just fine. If you like the sharp tang of a spicy onion, hold back on the soil amendments, fertilizer, and be careful not to over water. For the strongest flavor chives need a lean soil and a bit of drought stress. Make sure the plants are well established before you experiment with holding back on the water. And keep a good eye on them, so they don’t actually wilt. If on the other hand you would prefer mild tasting extra large chives, grow them in rich well amended soil (add plenty of organic matter) and keep the soil evenly moist (but not wet).

Established chive plants are as ornamental as they are tasty. In early to mid spring they are festooned with cheerfully purple flowers that can be used in salads or even bouquets – if you don’t mind the scent of onions. The garlic flavored chives are not quite as ornamental, but their white flowers, which appear in mid to late summer, can be snipped and added to salad or floated on the top of hot or cold soups. Once they are done flowering you can collect the mature seed heads for dry arrangements, or to start new plants to share with your friends. Chive plants make a tidy spiky statement in the garden. It doesn’t hurt to have a few patches of chives. That way if you enjoy the flavor you can cut from those tucked into an herb bed or the vegetable garden while others are left to beautify the flower border.

In the kitchen, I must admit, I am a bit old fashioned when it comes to using chives. I like to dice them up with a sharp knife, much like the dehydrated chives you buy off the spice rack. However, fresh from the garden they are really far superior. Fresh chives are great in anything that cooks fairly quickly, such as egg dishes, white fish, canned or frozen veggies, stews, or soups. If you like the taste of onions and garlic you will also enjoy them raw - tossed into green salads, mixed up with tuna or salmon for sandwiches, as a garnish for deviled eggs, potatoe and macaroni salad, and casseroles. As far as I am concerned, chives are great in just about any savory dish. When you want a little flavor, a little flare - not much beats garden fresh chives.

If you can’t find the chives your heart most desires at your local nursery, check out:

http://www.evergreenseeds.com/ They have the Chinese Leek Flowers, as well as two other varieties of garlic of Chinese chives. They are primarily an Internet business. (I have purchased lots of seed from them with no problem.) However you can also contact them at: Evergreen Y.H. Enterprises, P.O. Box 17538, Anaheim, CA 92817

http://www.Johnnyseeds.com They have chives in three different sizes, as well as two different types of garlic chives. You can also call to request a catalog (877) 564-6697. You will be glad you did.

Stay tuned, next time we will be taking a look at Crimson Clovers’ lovely flowers - made famous by that old tune . . . Until then, you can probably find me out in the garden, Digging the Dirt.

Copyright 2006 Harvest McCampbell, from my column "Digging the Dirt," published in The Hoopa Valley People Newspaper, July 25, 2006. Posted here with permission.

Added a photo on 11.13.16.  Text and photo copyright 2016, Harvest McCampbell. Please feel free to share using the buttons below.  All other rights reserved. 


More herb articles:
Basil

Cilantro

Fennel

Parsley


Sweet Cecily will be covered before you know it, as well as lots of veggies, flowers and other good stuff for the garden.

Aphids Are Among Us

Gardeners are all familiar with these tiny creatures, even if they only grow a rose bush or two. The soft squishy things can reproduce like wild fire and if left unchecked they can wilt tender rose buds before the sun reaches high noon. And roses are not their only targets. They like all sorts of delectable garden fare. Aphids suck. Yes they do. In fact that is how they make their living.

These little creatures have a longish proboscis, kind of like a mosquito. They use this, first to pierce tender plant parts, and then like a straw, to slurp up carbohydrate rich plant juice. Aphids are like natural born diabetics. What they excrete is actually sweeter than what they slurp up. Aphids exude a thick syrup of concentrated minerals and sugar. Ants are often attracted to aphid colonies, collecting their “honey dew” and using it for food. When the honey dew is not consumed, but rather collects in abundance on plant leaves it can lead to mildew, rust, and fungus, which are definitely not good news. However, honey dew is not all bad news. Azotobacter, a free living nitrogen fixing bacteria that inhabits the soil, thrives on the stuff aphids excrete. Also, keep in mind that slight to moderate pest damage increases the nutrient value of produce. Plants under some insect stress produce more anti-oxidants and phytochemicals to protect their health, and those nutrients also help protect our health.

Aphids offer damage and danger to our plants, while at the same time they can be symbiotic and beneficial. What’s a gardener to do? Diversity, balance, and attention are key. Planting to attract beneficial insects goes along way towards encouraging the diversity necessary to keep aphids in check By encouraging a balance between predator and prey, the gardener may need do nothing more than watch the laws of nature at work in the garden.

Aphids are harried by a number of tiny wasps who lay their eggs right inside the aphids body. Then there are the hover flies whose caterpillar like larva devour tender aphids like they are the tastiest treat on the planet. Ladybugs and lace wings, as well as their larva, happily dine on the squishy sticky creatures. Except for the lace wings, all of these creatures are hard at work in my garden, and I have never ordered or purchased a single bug. (If you missed the article on Beneficial Insects please see: http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/2006/05/beneficial-insects.html You will find all the info you need to attract these hard working insects into your yard and garden.)

Even with the beneficial bugs hard at work in my garden, there are times I take matters into my own hands. Just before my Evening Primrose started to bloom, I noticed lots of aphids colonizing the buds. I studied these aphids up for a while. There were no tale-tale “mummies” that signal busy parasitic wasps. (I have a photo of the mumies, but I am having problems with blogger uploading my photos lately. If you need to see the photo, leave a comment and I will try again.) No hungry hover fly larva, no ladybugs at any stage. The remedy was quite simple. I hosed off the flower buds with a gentle steady stream. In the spots that the buggers were holding on tightly, I used my fingers to gently dislodge them, and hosed some more. Now that the Primroses are blooming, I find there are a few aphids, but they never came back in force.

Simply washing aphids from your plants is the least toxic and least disruptive way to deal with populations that are out of control. There are additional strategies that are considered organic. Insecticidal soap and Neem oil may provide longer protection as they actually kill the aphids rather than just displace them. These products are available at many garden supply outlets, through catalogs, and are often found at natural food supper-markets. Follow the directions on the labels and spray at dusk to minimize damage to beneficial insects. While you will need to thoroughly wet the infested surfaces, try to minimize the amount of your solution that drips on to your soil. Small amounts of Neem and Insecticidal soap will not harm earthworms or soil microorganisms. Just be careful not to over do.

If you happen to have food or agriculture grade diatomaceous earth laying around, it also makes quick work of aphids. Diatomaceous Earth often called DE is non toxic to fish, amphibians, and to you and your pets. It is made up of fossilized bodies of microscopic sea creatures called Diatoms. When prepared as a food preservative or as an insecticide it is ground in such a way that preserves the sharp edges of these tiny ancient creature’s shells. These sharp edges pierce the bodies of insects, both beneficial and pests, and the insects die of dehydration as their body fluids leak and evaporate.

I hate to use DE because it is death to beneficials, but I gave it a try as an experiment for the sake of this article. I sprinkled some on some squash leaves that were infested with aphids. By morning there were no more aphids in sight and after a week they haven’t returned. DE looks like dust or powder on the plant, and as long as it remains it is lethal. Small amounts can be ingested by earthworms, pets, and people without harm. (In fact, it is sometimes used internally to kill intestinal parasites. But do your own research or ask your doc or vet before trying this yourself.) Make sure not to breathe the DE dust or get it in your eyes. It is high in silica which is not good for your lungs and the sharp edges can irritate delicate eye membranes. (If you think this is scary, read the labels on any commercial pesticide, most of them are known to cause cancer, respiratory distress, and more.) DE can be found in most of the same places as Neem Oil and Insecticidal Soap.

Tobacco tea is a totally free ‘natural’ pesticide that you can grow and use on aphids. Be aware, natural does not always mean safe and non toxic. It is advised not to pick produce sprayed with tobacco for at least two weeks after the last application. I only use tobacco tea when my tiny seedlings in cell packs are under heavy attack. That way my produce and the garden ecosystem are not poisoned. For more information see:
http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/2006/06/multi-use-nicotiana.html

While aphids may not exactly be gardeners best friends, they do have their good points. And even when they are being naughty they are generally not as harmful as people think. Tolerating some aphids in the garden while growing plants that encourage beneficial insects provides great tools for teaching children about nature, ecosystems, balance and diversity. Gardens that nurture life, nourish much more than just our bodies, they teach us lessons about life and nourish our souls.

Stay tuned, next time we will be looking at garden fresh chives which offer reliable hot weather flavor. In the meantime you can probably find me in the garden, Digging the Dirt.

Copyright 2006 Harvest McCampbell, from my column "Digging the Dirt," published in The Hoopa Valley People Newspaper, July 18, 2006. Posted here with permission.

(Also, chapter 4 of my novel in progress, Spirit House, is up at: http://360.yahoo.com/harvest95546 Look for the Blog section - near the top of the page.)