Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica)

Stinging Nettle is one of many commonplace plants which are both good for the wildlife garden, and serve as a food & medicine. They are therefore doubly welcome in a permaculture design.

Nettle tea has been used as a medicinal herb for centuries in Europe. An easily made green tea from fresh or dried leaves, nettle tea is loaded with antioxidants and other nutraceuticals that bring benefits to every system in the body. For two weeks in spring while the nettles are young and tender, a cup of nettle tea each day serves as a spring tonic. The vitamins, lutein, lycopene and iron in nettle tea are restorative to the system. Herbalists refer to nettle as an adaptogen, alterative, depurient, or a blood purifier, and it had found a place in many useful formulas, including more recently for hayfever.

Nettles can be used for food, and make an excellent soup although the location of the plant and its growing conditions should determine whether or where it is chosen. I spoke to my landlord once, who had been out on the moors wild- crafting some nettles. He said that evening he made a hearty nettle soup with his wife, and quickly fell into a deep 12 hour sleep from which he felt very refreshed but could remember nothing of the night before. Such reports of mildly sedative properties are not uncommon from wild plant foods. It did lead me to question where he might have picked them from.

As nettle tends to grow around human settlements, and concentrate sometimes toxic residues, care should be taken. In my study area, the nettle stand is next to a farm wall where it appears pesticides are loaded on to tractor booms, so I don't use them for medicine or food, or as fertiliser. They are instead being used as a detoxifying buffer against the wall, and to benefit wildlife.In years to come, and in the absence of any pesticide use at the farm, I would resume using the nettles for food and fertiliser. On the compost heap they supply plentiful ntirogen and silica. Medicines have a higher standard of purity, especially if they are to be concentrated into tinctures or fluid extracts, and I would wait somewhat longer to establish purity of the herbs before making medicines.

Stinging nettles support more than 40 kinds of insects, for whom the sting can form a protective shield against grazing animals.Many nettle patches hold overwintering insects which swarm around fresh spring nettles and provide early food for ladybirds. These same aphids are eaten by blue tits and other woodland birds that dart around the stems. In late summer the huge quantity of seeds produced are food for many seed-eating birds, such as house sparrows, chaffinches, and bullfinches.Nettles are also a magnet for other insect-eaters like hedgehogs, shrews, frogs and toads, at all times of year. Certain moths like nettles, as do many of the UK’s most colourful and best known butterflies, such as the Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock Butterflies. Their larvae feed in large groups in silken tents at the top of the nettle stems.My nettle stand is conveniently out of sight of neighbours who might feel inclined to complain about their untidiness, so can be left to overwinter without a mowing or scything regime.

Nettle can be used as a natural fertiliser in the form of a tea. Fill a bucket with nettle clippings (particularly tops). Add rain water to about 3/4 full. Chop the mixture with hedge clippers. Stir the mixture thoroughly every few days (some say once a day, every day). After about two weeks it is ready to use.When using this mixture, filter out the debris and use only the clearish liquid. The solution is mixed with water in a proportion of 1 : 10 (one part nettle solution to ten parts water). Pour the solution directly at the base of the plants where the roots will have quick use of it. This "tea" is meant as a supplimental feeding for plants that have a high demand for nourishment, such as tomatos, leeks, brassicas, cucumbers and courgettes. Other plants that will appreciate stinging nettle tea include fruit trees and bushes, roses, annuals and perennial flowering plants. It is not really meant to supplement such plants as onions beans and peas.