Feeling nettled (Nettle)

Member Name: mumsymary

Product:	Nettle
Date:	19/04/07 (1761 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good for butterflies

Disadvantages: some sting

Stinging nettle Family: N.O. Urticaceae
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I am sure most of you will recognise the stinging nettle, Urtica dioica. Family Urticeae
If you have a bed of nettles near you they will be growing now and will grow to 1 to 2 metres tall in the summer and die down in the winter. The stinging nettle is an herbaceous perennial that will live for many years if not disturbed. The jagged edged green leaves grow from the stem they are soft on the top but underneath and up the stem they are covered with tiny hairs. It is these hairs that cause the stinging sensation on your skin as when you brush/crush the hairs they release a chemical that causes a stinging sensation and rash on your skin. If like me you have fallen into a bed of nettles
You will know how painful they can be.
Flowers, these are small and a greenish colour they hang, drooping in clusters from the stem where the leaf joins it male and female flowers hang on different clusters.
I know Stinging nettle flowers set my hay fever off as my eyes will itch and I will sneeze quite loudly when I pass a bed of nettles in flowers.

Easing that sting.
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This sting, stings for hours after but can be eased by an antihistamine cream or crushing a dock leaf and putting that on it. Apparently urine also eases the sting I have not had the need or desire to wee, wee on a nettle sting though. Cold water or ice also eases the pain a little too.

Growing nettles
Growing nettles is quite easy they like a rich fertile soil. They like a nitrogen rich soil
So why might you wish to grow or use a stinging nettle.
There are many folk law tales connected to sting nettles there are some herbal and culinary uses too

Culinary
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When the leaves are cooked they lose their sting...You could drink nettle tea, make nettle soup or boil the leaves as a vegetable like spinach

Medicinal use
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I have never used nettles medicinally but it is said they help suffers of, gangrene, gout rheumatism and can get rid of scabies

Clothing

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Nettles will dye cloth a good shade of green. Cloth can also be made from the fibres of nettles.
I wonder if the fabric of the cloth has the magical properties as the folk tale by Hans Christian Andersen where a girls knits shirts of nettles for her brothers who have been changed into swans by a wicked stepmother She does not finish the last shirt in time, so the last brother has one arm left as a swans wing.. Read a little of this story at .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The Wild Swans

Use in the garden and for wildlife
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Cut stinging nettles help the compost heap rot down them are an accelerator.
Now the reason why you may see me peering at a clump of nettles is because butterflies from the family Nymphalidae the small tortoiseshell, the peacock, the comma, the red Admiral, lay their eggs on them and the caterpillars eat the leaves Some moths also lay their eggs on the nettle the small magpie moth and the mother of pearl are two of them. You will find greenfly on nettles and sometimes ladybirds eating the greenfly. Butterfly eggs are usually laid on the sweet tender leaves at the top of the plant the young leaves are also the best for human consumption I am told. A nettle patch in the sun is much better for attracting wildlife than a patch in the shade, so it is not really worth cultivating that shaded nettle patch.
I do not have a nettle patch in the garden as I live by a playing field that has plenty of nettle patches that regularly have caterpillars of the small tortoiseshell .A nettle patch is really a good wildlife area .

Mat the 16/27th is be nice to nettles week go to http://www.nettles.org.uk/ where there is further info and a survey form if you have a nettle patch in the garden.
http://www.nettles.org.uk/nettles/activities/gard ensurvey.asp

If you cut down your nettle patch in mid June when the first brood of caterpillars have wandered away to pupate you will get fresh new leaves grow to tempt butterflies to lay their eggs again

How to get rid of an unwanted nettle patch
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Do not try to do this now in April, as there may be butterfly eggs already laid. Wait till next February to try and get rid of them by digging up to get rid of all the roots. Nettles produce strong underground runners that shoot up nettles if you do not control them.
There are other nettles to . The leser nettle which has fewer stinging hairs . The Roman nettle. which people think was brought here by the Romans .The white dead nettle, the red dead nettle , the yellow dead nettle. The white dead nettle is one the bees like sucking nectar from its flower as a child I also sucked the sweet nectar. Also I remember teasing friends by chasing them with a white dead nettle as it looks very much like the stinging one.


I hope this has helped you understand the nettle a little better.

I leave you with poem Tall nettles by Edward Thomas; I had to study this for my English literature O level in 1970

TALL nettles cover up, as they have done
These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone:
Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.

This corner of the farmyard I like most:
As well as any bloom upon a flower
I like the dust on the nettles, never lost
Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.

Thanks for reading Mary.

Summary: A wild wild plant .