Grower
Seasons/Availability
Stinging Nettle Leaves are available in the spring season.
Current Facts
The inestimable Jane Grigson (English foodie extraordinaire) loves nettles in Irish Lamb Stew. She suggests eating nettles stewed and served on fried bread with poached eggs, or with brains and a creamy sauce. The vegetarian specialists at Green's Restaurant in San Francisco write in "The Green's Cookbook" that the stinging properties disappear in boiling water. The broth is rich and smooth and a vivid green. Long popular in Europe, wild nettles are enjoying a recent boom in the United States.
Description/Taste
Absolutely stunning, stinging nettle leaves display a fringe of pinkish white or greenish blossoms and deeply toothed, heart shaped or oval leaves resembling the mint family. Always wear gloves when handling! Never pick them, not from the garden or from the greengrocer's shelves, without protecting hands. Snip the leaves with scissors. If stung, seek hot water. Nettles are botanically listed as an herb, not a vegetable, but the leaves, cooked down, are used like spinach. Both leaves and stems are covered with small stiff hairs that inject a stinging fluid on contact in exposed flesh. Once dried or cooked, the leaves and stems lose their stinging properties.
Nutritional Value
Experts claim stinging nettles have a superior vitamin content. Rich in vitamin A, vitamin B, and vitamin C, they contain an excellent source of incomplete protein.
Applications
For tea, try one or two glovefuls of leaves in eight cups of water. Nettle tea is popular in natural food stores and can be easily made at home. Hang nettle greens in an airy warm place, allowing four to five days drying time. Crumble leaves and stems; keep in an airtight covered container. For tea, use two teaspoonfuls of dried nettles per cup of boiling water. Add lemon and honey if desired. Mix with other wild dried herbs for a change of flavors. To store, nettles freeze well. Place rinsed nettles in a large kettle. Add boiling water to cover. Let steep three to four minutes; drain; pack into freezer containers; freeze. Use frozen nettles within eight months.
Ethnic/Cultural Info
Young leaves and shoots are brewed for beer or cooked for greens. Nutritionally rich, nettles make an iron-rich tonic tea for anemia. The leaves make a valuable fertilizer. The plant is said to be a digestive and diuretic, and as an astringent, aids circulation, relieves gout, eczema, arthritis and clears uric acid. A poultice treats cuts and burns. The seeds were once given for treatment of tuberculosis and to treat the lungs after bronchitis. The prickly hairs contain histamine and even the stems provide a fiber for making cloth.
Geography/History
Locally grown at Coleman Farms, Carpinteria, California, this renowned and successful farm has been growing premium products since 1964. Specializing in lettuce varieties, more than one hundred garden-fresh edibles flourish on this thriving farm's fertile ten acres. Specialty Produce strongly supports and endorses our local growers and the California farming industry. Native to Europe and either annual or perennial herbaceous plants, nettles love fertile ground, especially moist rich soil along streams and rivers. Growing in most regions of the United States nettles also like the compatible living conditions near shaded pathways and in meadows, wasteland and moist woodlands. The plant averages three to five feet tall and grows from a creeping rootstalk. The three species grown in the American southwest include Urtica dioica (subspecies, Urtica dioica gracilis), Urtica gracilenta and Urtica urens. Urtica and urens are both derived from the Latin word "uro" meaning, quite appropriate for stinging nettles, "to burn".
Featured Recipes
Recipes that include Stinging Nettle Leaves. One
is easiest, three is harder.
