No. 4036 — Cultivating and Using Nettles

The author argues nettles should not be regarded as useless weeds, but cultivated for fodder, fibre and household applications.

Nettles multiply by seed and spreading roots. Sow thickly in September; alternatively in September or October dig up and divide plants, transplanting their roots and trimming old stems about two finger-widths above the crown.

She distinguishes small stinging nettles and large nettles. For fodder, cut when plants reach about three-quarters of an arshin and dry like hay. Four or five cuts per summer were considered possible.

The source recommends planting densely and firming the soil to encourage upright stalks. An established bed can regrow from its roots without yearly sowing.

Nettles can grow on poor ground and need little ploughing, but manure is recommended for strong fibre stems.

Cut young plants for green fodder, more mature ones for drying, and fully ripe stalks for spinning. A spring fodder cut may be followed by a later fibre harvest.

First, the author uses chopped fresh young nettles as feed for poultry, especially young turkeys.

Second, she claims a handful of nettle seed mixed into oats morning and evening makes horses fat and healthy with glossy coats. Third, she claims it increases egg laying in hens.

Fourth, the source says nettle leaves soften tough meat when cooked together. Fifth, it claims meat keeps fresh longer when packed in nettles.

Sixth, the author describes colouring eggs yellow in water boiled with nettle roots, particularly with added alum and salt. Seventh, nettles were used to make light green dye for woollen cloth, which she says turns yellow with alum.

Eighth, dried nettles could be burned as fuel, yielding useful heat and ash.

Ninth, the outer stalk fibres were used to make fine cloth: mature plants were cut in August or September after stems darkened or yellowed, leaves drooped and seeds loosened.

The workers wore gloves, cut near the roots, dried the stalks scattered on a meadow for two days to remove leaves more easily, and tied them into bunches. The period method then soaked bundles about six days in river or pond water to help separate fibres.

Tenth, nettles furnished strong yarn for stockings and a cotton-like woven cloth, which the author considered warmer than linen.

Eleventh, nettles were used as green or dried cattle fodder. The author claimed scalded nettles mixed into drinking mash could prevent livestock illness and increase milk yield, cream thickness and butter quality.

Twelfth, the source gives many old folk medicinal claims for people, including nettle dishes, juice and seeds for tuberculosis, fevers, coughing blood, kidney pain, breathlessness and urinary stones.

It also describes whipping numb or painful body parts with fresh nettles until small blisters form as a folk remedy for paralysis or rheumatism, then soothing skin with oil or sour cream.

A final note warns that small yellow insects should be shaken from fresh nettle leaves before cooking.