Nettles (Urtica Species, Laportea Canadensis) Sometimes nettles grow near catnip, another similar-looking plant. Mints, of course, have no stinging hairs, and catnip is fragrant. Catnip and nettles are an excellent combination for herb tea. Collect nettle leaves before they flower in spring. They may be bad for the kidneys after they flower.
People have been using nettles for food, medicine, fiber, and dyes since the Bronze Age. Whenever any of my tour groups find nettles, I announce that someone will volunteer to get stung, to demonstrate how jewelweed cures the rash. I have to travel quite a distance to find a place where they grow like "weeds. " Clean and chop nettles wearing rubber gloves. Nettles have a bad reputation as an unpleasant-tasting survival food in some circles. I enjoy nettles as a vegetable side-dish with rice and beans. I also dry nettles for winter use and tea. As food, this tonic is good for rebuilding the system of chronically ill people. The Nettle Seed Rebellion: Outlaw Plants &Their Progeny.
For The Weeds of Summer Blogparty hosted by Darcey Blue over at Gaia’s Gifts Prequel: An Irreverent Introduction to Weeds and Other Wild Things Unruly and feral, weeds annoy us with their promiscuous strut and blatant disregard for convention and known boundaries. Many of them are immigrants and gypsies, with a reputation for sneaking into happy domestic scenes with troubling ease and for taking over the garden party with a sensual but insistent tangle of tendrils and roots. Some, like Sacred Datura, Stinging Nettles or Poison Ivy, burn or hurt the human hand who attempts to pull or hack them from their desired home. Others, such as the Asian Elm so common to the Southwest, suck much needed groundwater into themselves and away from the parched surroundings or, like Salt Cedar, create an environment inhospitable to all other plant.
Some, such as Horehound, create a veritable monocultures as they rapidly overcome the native ecology. Urtica spp. When to Harvest When NOT to Harvest. Harvesting Nettle Seeds. 23 August, 2010 by Lucinda Nettle Seed I passed a lovely afternoon recently in harvesting my first nettle seeds of the year. They are so abundant right now and so helpful during these busy periods that it was a real pleasure to get out gathering them. There are a couple of great articles on the internet describing how to harvest nettle seeds along with their uses which I highly recommend reading, notably those by Henriette here and here and Kiva Rose here and here.
The benefits of nettle seeds have some overlap with those of the leaf, both being strengthening, mineral rich, great for skin and hair and for supporting the kidneys and urinary system. Abundant and ready to harvest. According to Henriette, ‘Nettle seeds are adaptogens. Useful for chronic exhaustion, adrenal fatigue and burnout, nettle seeds have also been used to aid kidney function in both people and animals with degenerative conditions. Harvest now will the seeds are hanging in strands Nettle Patch Nettle Seed Harvest Like this: Harvesting Wild Nettles. One of my goals in recent years has been to better learn how to “forage” the wild food around me. Not only is it free, but they are often very good for you as well. Nutrient rich nettles are perfect for picking right now in my area, as they are young and tender. I need to say from the beginning that I am just a beginner at this and if you would like to do the same I encourage you to get expert advice on what to pick and what not to pick.
But I figured that nettles were not only very easy to identify (if in doubt, touch it and you will soon found out!) “Nettles are a rich green color revealing its extremely high iron and chlorophyll content. Now, you may be thinking of the time you ran through a stinging nettle patch with shorts on in the summer as a child. And yes, it’s completely edible (and I found delicious too). Since we don’t have any growing at our house, I drove over to my in-laws house, where they have a whole “garden” of stinging nettle. 1-Pick when the plant is young. Nettle: Info & Pesto Recipe. Nettles! No matter the weather or date, I know that Spring has sprung when the nettles come up out of the ground. Most people cringe at the mention of nettles, but just say the word and I'll jump in my truck with kitchen gloves and plastic bags ready for harvesting.Urticadioca is nettle's botanical name, dioica meaning "of two houses. " This common species of nettles has female and male flowers on separate stems with female flowering stems rising above the males.
No judgment there. Nettles grow in rich, moist soil in the woods; along year-round desert sagebrush streams; up on the passes; in farmers' fields; down to the ocean forests. They will grow in poison runoff from newly-constructed housing developments and industry. Maybe they're even in your backyard! Hollow hairs covering the underside of the leaves and stems of the plant and sporadically on the top of the leaves contain formic acid, causing the "sting" for which they are so famous. Herbal Branch 5: Stinging Nettles the Super Food? Yes, the stinging nettle (Urtica dioica.) This is no April Fools joke. And, some of you will think I’m really strange for wanting to eat the plant that can cause such discomfort when you accidentally brush against it. Early spring is my favorite time of the year because I can harvest nettles and many other wild herbs.
As I discuss in Roots and Branches, the best way to use herbs as medicine is to use them as food. We all know that an important part of staying healthy is to eat well. Vibrant food is our best medicine. Did you know that nettles contain the highest plant source of iron? This is where it gets hard for people, but I make it easy. There are a lot of people who have heard this about wild plants such as nettles and dandelions, but I know you may be asking yourself, “How do I find nettle, gather it, and actually use this plant?” This is EXACTLY what LearningHerbs.com is all about. I am going to make this REALLY easy. First, I will tell you how to cook with nettles. Good question. Natural Cordage - Nettles.