Lightly raining and mild temps currently. Humid. Remind me to invest in a little weather station for my little spot here. I do like to keep those records since the weather service never gets it right out here.
On Nettles:
I’ve eaten the leaves in the past- in soup and in tisane. But I recently learned that the seeds are very edible and healthy too. If you look up on the interwebs, you see all kinds of nutrients that are conductive to keeping humans healthy. The roots and leaves as well as the seeds are all edible! You can also see that there is a lot of $$ being exchanged for already dried and packaged nettles. Perhaps that might be a way to make a little extra income at some point down the line but for now, I’m looking at it as a survival food. After all, I no longer have a big pantry full of food that could have fed me easily and a couple other people for sure, for months, along with the critters and fresh garden foods.
Not knowing what this winter will be like, I need to at least get a few basics. And those basics, due to lack of storage space, need to pack a punch. Nettles are a plant that can pack that punch. I can dry them fairly easily. I can powder them to add extra nutrients to other meals. Powdered leaves don’t take up much room. I have however missed the time to gather the leaves. So seeds will have to do for now. I intend to start harvesting them daily in the mornings while on walks with Rider, before work. I do have a dehydrator in the shed, but it’s a very big one and I don’t have room for it in Tiny. So I will lay them out on a towel and let them dry inside and hopes they dry well. I may consider building a solar dryer at some point. Something I don’t have to use electricity for on the nice days. More rabbit holes to go down!
Anyway, if you don’t know nettles that well, Stinging Nettles that is, they have male and female plants separately. I have examples I took pictures of above. The male has flowers that are round and are held more horizontally on their clusters and the females have seed bunches that dangle more vertical and are different a pointy triangular type shape.
Wear gloves if you don’t like the sting. Some find the sting therapeutic but generally I’m not a fan of the sting so I am a fan of a common ‘weed’ that often grows near it and immediately nullifies the sting with it’s sap. That weed is Jewelweed. A member of the impatiens family if you are a plant nerd like I am and find that kind of thing interesting. I included a picture of a small Jewelweed. They tend to get taller than this. Please don’t mind Rider’s butt. He always has to try to make an appearance some how.
Climate Wary Homesteader 