Nettles: Beyond the Sting!
By Pete Widin
DesignerIn grade school, I’d often spend my summers running around the neighborhood with a select few adventurers. Climbing trees, making forts out of dead ones, and staring at ants for hours made up the bulk of my To-Do list. Reflecting on this, it’s fitting that I became a landscape designer and am here now talking to you about Nettles, a plant I’ve made close friends with despite it’s prickly exterior. I’ve found the best friends are often packaged in a repelling shell, and that the time spent learning to understand them is rewarded many times over.
Years later in grad school, I worked on a friend’s organic farm in Ann Arbor, Michigan for a summer. Getting some experience with food-producing plants on a large scale was important to me, since I have a passion for farm planning and design to improve on-farm income. One crop we planted was the now popular Sweet Potato. The farm manager came up to me one morning and announced that for the next few days we would be planting starts for these tasty, bulbous roots. We planted about 1,000 plants in all that week. The deer thanked us by creating a regimented schedule of twice a week trimming on the Sweet Potato vines for the rest of the summer. We can eat Sweet Potato vines as well you know, they’re delicious stir-fried! We do have some things in common with deer, after all.
The point of this story isn’t to tell you all about my follies as a farmer. It’s about how that failure led me to revere some of the plants that we consistently eschew in favor of temperamental, finicky crops that only produce if they consume much of our time and energy to tend them. Why not take your share of the bounty provided by our Earth at no charge?
This organic farm I’m reflecting on had a set of beautiful, hand-hewn barns and outbuildings up by the house. They formed the gateway to 80 acres of paradise beyond their wind worn walls, and sheltered a few luscious clumps of weeds at their feet. In an especially wet spot, tucked away in the kind of place you forget about, was a thick, impenetrable shock of Nettles. I’d read about their many health benefits and high nutrient density, and so that day began a scheme to harvest some. What did I make, you ask? Read on and I’ll reveal!
Of the wild edible plants I’ve come across, Nettles are one of the most nourishing, and make some delicious foods and drinks. The plants are high in minerals such as Magnesium, Potassium, Calcium and Iron. Vitamin C is present in high amounts as well, and assists with Iron uptake for improved red blood cell production, getting plenty of oxygen throughout the body. The most common preparation of Nettle is as a tea, which has many health benefits. These range from improved immune function to the reduction of acne symptoms and support for skin health.
Harvesting Nettles:
If you’ve found a patch in a park or have some Nettles in your neighborhood, I’ve got a couple tips for harvesting it with minimal stinging!
Equipment
- Leather Gloves, Closed-toed Shoes and Long Sleeves+Pants (some that can’t be penetrated by pokeys)
- Scissors or Shears
- Large Grocery Bag
How To Harvest
- The best time to harvest your Nettles is before they’re knee-high. If they’re taller than that, then only harvest the top 12–18” of the plant. That is the most tender and nutritious part. Be sure to only clip the plants, there is no need to pull them up by their roots unless you mean reduce the population for next year. *Nettle “stingers” can only be truly neutralized by cooking, blending or drying the plant fully. There are Springtime contests in the UK where people eat whole, raw nettles, but I do not recommend trying it! Google ‘nettle eating contest UK’ for a video :0)
- You can dry the Nettles for teas and adding to soups as a fortifying herb, blanch and freeze them for future cooking, or pulverize them with some garlic, oil and other friends for some delicious and very nutrient-dense pesto! (see Recipe below)
Nettle Pesto
To save room, I’ll tell you to visit the Elana’s Pantry website for a simple and delicious recipe: https://elanaspantry.com/nettles-pesto/
Nettle Tea
This is what I made with my Michigan farm harvest :). Steep Dried Nettle leaves in hot water, and Voila! Delicious, mild tea with supportive health benefits. High in mineral content.
Aside from supporting humans, the Red Admiral Butterfly, an Oregon and North America native, has larvae which feed on the Nettle (Urtica dioica)
Pete Widin, MLA is an ecological landscape designer at Blossom here in Portland. He’s happy to finally be in the same town as the famous One Green World, and meeting all of the exciting permaculture people! Please visit Blossom on Facebook at BlossomPDX and hit ‘Like’ for educational event updates and seasonal, earth-happy gardening tips :)
On my forays into the world of edible and useful plants, I’ve found a fair number who sport spikes and otherwise dangerous exteriors. Many of these have proven to be useful allies on closer examination. Some of the prickly Thistles, for example, have edible centers with a texture similar to celery once you peel off the unapproachable outer stem. Roses, while full of piercing thorns, offer us beautiful flowers and their hips (fruit) which are both edible. Now before I get lost on another ode to the greater plant kingdom, I’ll wrap this around with my own powerful experience that forever changed the way I look at Nettles.
