It is that time of year again when mother nature remembers life and floods the landscape with a panorama of colours of different hues and takes us out of our Winter dilemma of doubt with life-giving forces, one of these vital forces being the common nettle.

The nettle is a common and painful stinging weed, which appears wherever land is disturbed by man and left derelict. It has variously been used in cloth manufacture, as a food and medicinally. Nettle is from an old word to twist (and hence make fibre).

It contains formic acid, gallic acid, vitamin A and C and mineral salts including calcium, potassium, silicon, iron, manganese and sulphur. It is an astringent (draws tissue together), anti hemorrhage, diuretic (causes increased flow of urine) and galactioguge (stimulates the production and flow of breast milk). So it cleans the blood.

As children, we used to use a dock leave to remove the sting. While rubbing the stung area we used to repeat: ‘Docken, docken in and out, Take the sting of the nettle out.’

Nettle Soup
Collect nettles. Pick smallest upper leaves. Use gloves or grasp tightly so as not to be stung.
You need:
4 oz onions
6 oz young nettles
1 pint of stock

Sauté onions. When softened, add a pinch of sea salt, black pepper and the washed nettle leaves and stock and simmer for 20 minutes.

Anything can be added for taste and flavour. Nettles can be cooked like spinach, they can also be dried by hanging up and used later to make herbal tea.

Put a sting into your life!