so what are nettles good for?
27 April 2008 by colouritgreen
We have far too many nettles.. in the hedges, in the ‘wild’ areas (such as around the pit of despair), but most annoyingly in the fields. The fields were let go a great deal before we got here and the fight against the nettles seems never ending. They are out as far as two metres from the hedge in the worst places, and there are clumps all over, and where there are nettles, there is not grass for our sheep. We wont use sprays, so the only answers are either to slash them down with a scythe - quick but they come back.. or pull them by hand. Yesterday we pulled three wheelbarrow loads in just an hour. We made very little impact on the nettle population!
It wasn’t bad work.. the nettles are not so high they attack the face when pulled and the recent rains has made the ground soft enough to get a decent bit of root with each pull. Also, physical work frees up the mind to think, and I started thinking that as we have so many nettles.. perhaps it was time they earned their space. I have a particular objection to them as the sting always seems to effect me badly - I still have painful bumps now on my wrist from yesterday morning’s nettle pulling.. being a clumsy wossit, I always seem to manage to get stung..
So, anyway, what are nettles good for..I thought I would start to count them, and experiment with using them along the way.
#1 butterflies. in the UK, red admiral, small tortoiseshell and one of my favourites: comma butterflies all depend on nettles.
don’t worry - there are always plenty here …
Soup! My children loved it to distraction. The amount of tender nettle tops they brought into the kitchen could have kept us in soup for a decade or so. I don’t know if it was a kind of sweet revenge - you sting me, I eat you?
Dried as a good source of minerals for stock - if they’ll eat them, and us too as teas or made into tinctures.
Green manure along with comfrey leaves.
Some more too but I’ll have to go and think.
thanks Paula - the list is quite huge when you stop to think about it.. I intend to work my way through it all.. revenge as you say!
Poppy from a life less simple also said animals will eat nettles if they have been cut and allowed to wilt - I shall ahve to try that.. but probably next winter as they have too much nice grass now!
If your sheep won’t eat them once they’re pulled you could try borrowing a donkey from somewhere, that’s how our top field got cleared of them, you don’t even need to pull them up for them.
I am just off to pick a big dustbinfull to make liquid plant food. Top dustbin with water, leave to infuse for 3-4 weeks and then use diluted 1:10 as plant food. But BEWARE - place well away from habitation - it stinks. It might not make uch of a dent in the amount you have got but at least it’ll give you something useful.
anotehr good idea. bet pumpkins would like that…
I made mine today and even got two small boys to help fill up the bin with water!! The french love all sorts of plant brews for both food and pesticides as in this site:
http://www.frenchgardening.com/tech.html?pid=3164873867231346
I’ll have to give it a go. just need to find some sort of bin to use…sure there must be something lying around …
Make sure it’s got a well fitting lid!!