It’s nettle season, and I have been working on gathering my yearly supply. I currently have a basket sitting in my car, and have been enjoying their very green aroma. Although nettles can be a bit prickly and off-putting, I can’t help loving them. They are incredibly rich in nutrients and just plain GOOD for you. From fresh eating, to drying for tea and powdering to add to my Wild Nettle Chocolates, the uses are many. If I end up harvesting enough this year, I would love freeze some nettle pesto and try my hand at making a nettle beer. I’m also working on establishing a nettle patch at my house, so I pulled up a few vigorous looking rhizomes while I was out there to plant beside the compost. I’m hoping proximity to compost and a good top dressing of leaf mulch will encourage them to grow robustly, so I can pick fresh nettles for my tea without having to go out on an expedition. Not that I mind the expeditions, especially on these damp spring days when green things are budding out all over the forest and the birds are singing. I’m just working toward that homesteading dream of an edible landscape, and nettles are part of that picture.
Although nettles are my favorite cup of tea, I realize nettle picking may not be everybody’s cup of tea. A basket full of nettles may seem like a hard-earned haul. They are rough around the edges, and will sting you if you don’t handle them with care, but as is the case with many things in life, they are good for you and worth the trouble. I fully encourage you to be brave, give them a try, and prepare to find a new favorite food in your backyard.
Once again, this is something I'd really love to gather wild, to drink, eat and use as conditioner for my hair! However, I'm not confident in the difference between the different types of nettle! I really need to find a yarb woman to teach me this stuff!
Most interesting. I'm a trout fisherman though and pushing thru them is n0ot my favorite streamside activity…:)
Goodwife, all the types I know of around here are OK to eat, but I don't know what grows in your part of the country. Online plant photo ID is really advanced these days, and I bet you can check out what you have growing around you and see if it is good to eat.
I had a lot of bad nettle run-ins playing in the creek bottoms when I was a kid, but that just taught me to be really careful picking them as an adult, so I only get small stings on my fingertips every so often. You could be serving up those fish with steamed nettles on the side!