Nettles

Nettles‘ wild habitat is damp and partly shady, often along river banks or in woods near water.  It is often the first significant green “leaf” plant to appear conspicuously while the grass is still buff and brown. Its scent as the weather warms is distinctive: often feral and foxy or a bit like cat pee. Some days the odor is more vegetal and at times it smells like black currant absolute, with its catty and wild scent features.

One of the first wild edibles of Spring, stinging nettle (urticaria dioica) is a multi-faceted herbs. It lends itself as a vegetable; a medicinal herb with many benefits, depending on the part of plant and preparation employed; it is a dye and fiber/ textile plant. In addition, nettles is used as one of the specific Biodynamic compost preparations (504); it makes a wonderful, albeit stinky,  liquid “green manure”  to fertilize plants with, and it has the property of drawing excess iron out of overly ferrous soils. Indeed, nettles is a great tonic for preventing iron deficiency, taken as a tea or tincture. Back to its habitat, nettles attracts aphids when it grows several feet high. Ladybugs lay their eggs on the plants and then ladybug larvae consume the aphids. Red Admiral butterflies also lay their eggs on this plant. In my garden, the nettles patch is a much appreciated beneficial insectary.

With all that nettles offers, is it any wonder she protects herself with the tiny, stinging silica needles along the stem and undersides of leaves? The sting is quite similar to the formic acid nip one gets with an ant bite, but it is anti inflammatory for some arthritic or rheumatic joint complaints.

Counter-intuitively, nettles in skin preparations relieves itchy conditions. This deep green , mineral -rich plant helps stimulate hair growth. Effective for some spring airborne allergies, prostate troubles, painful menses, even for tuberculosis bacteria, nettles is, as Rudolf Steiner said, “a jack-of-all-trades which can do an amazing amount”. Yes. To learn its deepest secrets, however, which comes of a sensitive, in -between the physical and spiritual kind of observation , you must live into its environment, perceive its role in soil processes, and study its growth. Then you will glimpse how “to grasp the nettle” , and its ability to do such wonderful, helpful things.