Iz's apprenticeship went very well. It ended at the end of October and he misses the farm. Luckily our yard has been keeping him busy! I will have other posts dedicated to our plans for the season after I get some more photos taken.
The topic today is Stinging Nettles (Urtica dioica) and Dandelions. Some people are lucky and have Nettles growing wild on their property, just like Dandelions do; but we are not so lucky, so we planted some last year. Early Spring is the best time to harvest Nettles so we got to work today! Once the Nettles bloom later in the summer, it is best to just keep cutting them back and throwing them in the compost or just let them go for next year and cut them back at the end of the season.
When harvesting Nettles, make sure you wear gloves. They really do sting! Iz used regular gardening gloves for harvest and moved to food safe gloves in the kitchen when removing the leaves from the stems. He had to double up on the gloves as he was getting stung through one layer.
We are making two things with our Nettle harvest. A potato and nettle soup and a nettle hair rinse. Both recipes are in one of our favorite herb reference books: The Complete Herb Book by Jekka McVicar.
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| Scarlett and the Nettles |
The hair rinse is as easy as making tea. Add a large handful of nettles in a pot on the stove, bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes covered. Strain into containers and let cool. To use, pour through your hair after shampooing. We just made this so I will have to report back about how it works. This is good for general conditioning of your hair but also good for preventing hair loss, itchy scalp, and dandruff. (McVicar) I was "Googleing" around looking for other nettle inspiration and came across another blog post about making the nettle hair rinse.
The soup includes nettles, potato, onion, milk, lovage, lemon thyme, oregano all blended after cooking together.
We had a bunch of leftover nettles so we are using a borrowed dehydrator to dry the leaves to use as tea as needed. According to McVicar, nettles are used as a diuretic, for anemia, and as a tonic to get useful vitamins and minerals we might lack during the winter, including vitamin C and Iron.
It is important to note that to eat nettles, you must cook them! Eating the plant raw can cause kidney damage and poisoning. (McVicar)
Here are a few external sources talking a little more about Stinging Nettles as a plant and uses.
We have plenty of Dandelions growing all over our yard. If you are going to harvest in your yard, make sure that there haven't been any herbicides or other chemicals sprayed on or near your crop. You don't want to eat that! Also, try to harvest away from the road as there can be all kinds of yucky stuff coming off of cars and the road. Try to harvest the leaves when they are a young as possible as they will be more tender.
All we are doing with the Dandelions is cleaning off the roots to roast and keeping the leaves to eat in salads or I'm thinking about adding them to an herb pesto with thyme and leftover nettles.
Roasted Dandelion root is used commonly as a coffee substitute. I have not tried this yet, so I will be report back.
When dealing with herbs on your own, I strongly recommend doing a little research first to make sure there are not any contraindications for your own health status. Some herbs can interact with drugs, and specific medical conditions. Read more than one source to make sure you get a well rounded profile of the herb and the opinions of several experts. Some of the resources we use are as follows:
Mountain Rose Herbs
Books by Richo Cech, owner of Horizon Herbs
Susun Weed
and as I mentioned before Jekka McVicar
