Claytonia season has arrived so we are resharing this piece we did last year to introduce you to the joys of Claytonia. Claytonia is the succulent green which is part of our Spring salad offerings. It is known as miner’s lettuce in the west — any of you who spent time hiking or camping in the mountain west may have even foraged wild claytonia.
According to a study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, “100 grams of miner’s lettuce—about the size of a decent salad—contains a third of your daily requirement of Vitamin C, 22 percent of the Vitamin A, and 10 percent of the iron you need, so this little leaf packs a nutritional punch.”
Claytonia perfoliata, the species for which the term miner’s lettuce was coined, is distributed throughout the Mountain West of North America in moist soils and prefers areas which have been recently disturbed. It got its name due to its use as a fresh salad green by miners in the 1849 Gold Rush in California.
At our farm, it lives in our hoophouse and looking at its lushness feels a bit like a Spring goldrush…or at least crisp saladrush! All parts are edible, leaves, stems and flowers. We love the leaves them as a succulent salad green, and the stems chopped to offer a little bit of succulent crispness to a salad. You can saute claytonia as well. And we also find the chopped stems and even the leaves great tossed on top of a soup or chili.
Barbara Damrosch, a favorite gardening guru/writer and the lesser known half of Four Seasons Farm with Eliot Coleman, wrote this great piece about Claytonia in the Washington Post.
Claytonia Salad with cheese, nuts, frozen blueberries and red onion!
In this very grey, late-April, we hope you also find some Spring beauty in the claytonia.