I recently bought organic red clover (trifolium partense) seeds to sow for green manure, eating, bees and aesthetics. The packet, however, states that the plants are not edible. I know red clover is edible so I'm wondering why it would say that. Could it be the innoculant it came with? I can't think of any other reason...
I hear the flowers can cause digestive distress in some folks, especially if they overdo it. People use them for tea. I’ll be honest... I don’t like it, and I did try to. I’m good at developing a taste for new things but I like red clover best when the bees or the cattle have had it first. You can put flowers and leaves in with your salad if you want. Just go slowly at first to see whether you tolerate it well.
I’m guessing here, but I’ll bet that because red clover can disagree with some people, the company is afraid of lawyers and wants to exonerate itself beforehand. I don’t know what “organic” means where you are, but in the USA it has a very specific legal meaning (crafted to enable big business/farming interests to take advantage of the label whilst making it difficult for small farmers to qualify) Bottom line, though, if a packet of seeds here is labeled “organic,” there are no hormones or pre-emptive pesticides or GMOs allowed. Thus... if organic means there what it means here, I’m sure chemical inoculants aren’t the reason they said it’s not edible. I don’t think it’s edible, either... but I’ve eaten it anyway and as far as I can tell, it never hurt anything but my feelings. ;-p
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