Stinking Nettle, Slender Nettle and Wood Nettle are all excellent medicinal plants. Leaves can be harvested and cooked several ways. Roots can be dried and crushed and taken if you have ED problems. Dried leaves make an excellent tea. In Russia, freshly squeezed nettle juice was used to cure people of iron deficiency centuries ago. As a diuretic it will help prevent your lungs from over producing mucous (thus limiting effects or respiratory infections. Tincture of the whole plant can be used for the flu, colds, bronchitis and pneumonia. These are just a small number of the medicinal uses! I have a glass of tea of it daily and also like to cook up some of the greens to eat similar to turnip or collard greens. Have to dress them with garlic and olive oil for taste. Chop and add to soups or stews is the best way to intake them though. Good soup thickener and it replaces the need for basil.
Stinging Nettle
- Thread starter BBLife
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I just started reading some books on medicinal herbs. The nettle plant is rated very highly for its many uses. We have it growing around our place, even in the garden. A lot of what we've always called "weeds" are actually important medicinal herbs. Good stuff for every prepper to know.
I've seen stinging nettle growing along a stream out on the desert in northern Nevada, as a kid growing up in the forests of Washington we were always bumping the back of our hands against stinging nettles. I've eaten cooked nettle and it actually tastes pretty good. Presently I use nettle tablets to help prostate problems.
I make nettle soup and my mother made creams for horses from it years ago. It's one of the easiest plants to detect, which helps! I've an Irish nettle book around here somewhere, must dig it out and photograph it for you
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I had some, but it did not come back from seeds.
I'm in a nettle dead zone. The only one I see growing here is canadian wood nettle aka Laportea canadensis and it's rare. I know of only 4 or 5 places it grows. I don't use it now. I'm saving those places for when I have great need.
Be aware, canadian wood nettle looks a lot like frost weed before either plant blooms. (there is more than one species known as "frost weed". The one I'm referring to is Verbesina virginica)
Be aware, canadian wood nettle looks a lot like frost weed before either plant blooms. (there is more than one species known as "frost weed". The one I'm referring to is Verbesina virginica)
Sorry to hear it is hard to find in some places. I have a ditch that I mow with a push mower almost constantly and the nettle just keeps coming back. Great thing is it grows faster than the grass so I can snip a little harvest between mowings. Spring water flows constant in the ditch so the water keeps frost down and the nettle grows nearly year round less December to February. The road going up (1000') is lined with wood nettle on both sides. Definitely could survive just about on nettle alone here.
