Considering clover on St Patrick's Day

March 17 is a day celebrated in the West as St Patrick's Day.  It has become a day when families head to the pubs to drink Guinness and watch rugby. (Good combo.)  But it is the other symbol so often associated with Saint Patrick and the Irish -  clover - that I more often think of at this time. Clover is thought to be lucky. 

I regularly plant it in my raised beds in my garden, in the Fall, or scatter the seed in areas where the lawn doesn't do well. And by St Patrick's Day, the clover in my garden is beginning to come into its own and is looking lush.  Clover is a wonderful plant and cover crop. 

It fixes nitrogen in the soil for strong summer yields. Depending on the variety you plant, it can overwinter in North Carolina.

Cutting it in the spring when you are ready to plant your beds for Summer, you can use the green plant biomass to dig into the soil - if you dig your beds - or layer it as a green mulch, leaving it in place.  Or you can clear it off your beds and add it to your compost piles as green material at a time when green material is scarce in compost to help get your compost nice and hot.

I often leave at least one area to form flowers. These flowers provide bees with early season pollen to feed their hives.  And the flowers can also be harvested, dried and added to tea. If you're planting it into your raised beds, in the spring, harvesting the flowers is an essential daily routine until you top your clover completely or dig it in, or it will set seed in your bed and compete with your other plants.

As a herb, clover has been called a blood purifier.  Herbalists describe it as having complex anti-inflammatory compounds that include salicylic acid in the flowers.  Salicylic acid is the compound that the pharmaceutical industry later extracted and made into aspirin. Plants like Meadowsweet, Spiraea Ulmaria - which also became the root word behind 'aspirin'  - and  willow bark, are better known for their salycyclic acid pain-relieving properties, but clover is a wonderful, mild addition to a cup of green tea. 

Clover has been used by herbalists in many cultures for it's health properties.  Aside from its ability to reduce the likelihood of blood clots and for artery health, herbalists also include clover in their compendium of anti-cancer agents.  Research into clover's cancer-fighting capabilities has shown that one of its phytochemicals - genistein - has anti-tumour properties, along with other isoflavones that are a class of antioxidants and other chemicals that have cancer-fighting advantages. 

Although I include clover in my tea from time to time for reasons of flavour, I grow it primarily for the ways in which it supports my garden: for the bees; it's deep roots penetrating our clay soil; its ability to fix nitrogen in the soil of our raised beds; and because it is a good cover crop providing a useful source of green biomass at the end of winter and the start of spring - especially Mammoth Red Clover that grows a foot tall and is winter hardy.  Sown into my lawn, I use white clover, that feeds the bees for much of the year.

So, while you're enjoying your Guinness, drink a toast to that other Irish symbol, the green clover.  I suspect it's usefulness to our health and to our soil is why it's considered 'lucky'.

 Header image - Mammoth Red Clover germinating in our raised beds in the Fall