The Nettle (Urtica dioica)
Urtica dioica, the humble and ubiquitous nettle, is something so common that we rarely notice it until we brush against it and find ourselves with a bumpy and often painful rash.
The plant terrified me as a child, and with good reason. My Mum and Aunty have told me a story from their childhood when one fell into a nettle patch and, laughing, the other tried to pull her out, only to drop her back in again. One sister prefers this story much more than the other.
Now it is a plant that excites me. So many possibilities: easy soup when I’ve forgotten to go to the supermarket, string if I fancy some mindful crafting. A useful plant for my students to use in their internal assessments (leaves in shade are significantly bigger than leaves in full sun, and plants on a path have significantly more trichomes, the stinging parts, than plants with more protection).
I don’t have nettles in my garden at the moment, but they grow in abundance around my beehive, and I’m always trimming them to make sure they don’t stop the bees from going about their business (beesness?). Bees hate a disrupted flight path. I always bundle them up carefully to add to my compost. Somewhere in my mind, I think they’re almost as good as comfrey in terms of fertiliser. I’m not sure where I learned this.
I’ve checked, and despite permaculturists swearing by nettles for adding nitrogen to the soil, the peer reviewed science is mostly positive, with some neutral findings, and effectiveness depends on the preparation, crop and growing conditions. In a comparison of nettle and comfrey, nettle came out top