Stinging Nettles: Gifts from the Great Mother

LH, photo: Ariel Matisse

Squatting in a patch of stinging nettles with my foraging basket, and rubber gloves, I was snipping young stalks to sauté for dinner. Some people react with alarm when I mention eating stinging nettles, but the truth is nettles are beloved by wild foragers and herbalists. Mother Earth offers this gift packed with vitamins, minerals, and protein. Richio Cech in his book, Making Plant Medicine, summarizes the uses of nettles: “Practical Uses: Legion.” The Greeks and Romans cultivated fields of nettles more than any other crop.

Nettles sting because they have hairs on the stems and undersides of leaves that break off when touched, exposing the tiniest sharp needles that pierce the skin and inject a toxin that causes a burning rash. Fierce protection! For nettles are so nutritious, animals would devour them before they grew large enough to flower and bear seeds, the driving force in a plant’s life.

 An old adage says, “When in doubt, use nettles!” Their beneficial uses include: a natural detoxifier, an anti-inflammatory, a treatment for gout, anemia, joint pain, diabetes, hay fever, urinary tract issues, and prostate issues. Flogging with stinging nettles for arthritis, joint pain, and to increase blood circulation is the one recommendation I am nervous about trying. But when I am without energy and need a dose of friendliness, I reach for the jar of dry nettles and make a cup of tea. It’s magical how this plant restores my balance.

Arrangement with Nettles, watercolor, LH 2020

 And, of course, what’s good for me is good for the orchard. Part of being a good orchardist is learning how to take care of the trees with kindness. In late spring, when I want to boost the trees’ immune systems and help provide an extra boost of minerals, I turn towards nettles. When the plants are about eighteen inches tall, I cut a wheelbarrow-full, enough to fill a 50-gallon barrel. Then I add water and let the nettles sit for a few days. Sometimes, I add comfrey leaves for added minerals, horsetail for its silica, and garlicscapes, if I feel the trees need insect protection. After a few hot days, I drain out the liquid and fill my 300-gallon sprayer. The gooey remains of the nettle plants go onto the compost pile, and I set out for my tractor tour of the orchard pulling the airblast sprayer with its peacock’s tail of spray fanning out to touch every leaf.

Nettles reduce heavy metals in soils, in fact I remember hearing that if you plant a rusty agricultural tool, it will attract nettles to grow there. Mostly I find nettles pop up where they choose. At the farm, they don’t seem to care whether it’s a dry berm in full sun, against the peeling paint of the old chicken coop, or in the dappled light of the streambed. When Nettles have finished what they came to do, they pack up and move on. Wild plants are like that.

Now is the season to gather and cook young nettles (they will regrow for fall harvesting.) Try steaming them and adding a little lemon juice and olive oil, and some parmesan or other favorite cheese. Or sauté them with onions or shallots, add some garlic powder, and a bit of cream. For nettle pesto, most people suggest you boil the nettles and dry them with a towel. Then fill your food processor with the nettles, walnuts, pecans or other nut, lemon juice, salt, a couple of peeled garlic cloves, and some hard cheese like asiago or parmesan. Once it becomes the consistency of a paste dribble in olive oil till it is smooth and the consistency you’d like. If you make a lot, freeze some for the middle of next winter to serve over fresh linguine and bring spring back into your life. Don’t be alarmed: nettle pesto is iridescent green.

 In midsummer, I cut some of the tall nettles, tie them bundles, and hang them in my studio. Once they are dry, I take a cardboard box or large paper bag, and with gloves on, run my hands along the stem to remove the leaves. The dry leaves can be stored whole, but I put them all through the food processor and store them in a couple of gallon jars. We sell small packs of dried nettles at the farm stand along with bags of freshly picked.

Out of the soil of friendliness grows the beautiful bloom of compassion,

Watered by the tears of joy,

Sheltered beneath the cool shade of the tree of equanimity.

                                    —Longchenpa, 14th century Tibetan Buddhist teacher

 Nettles are a curious teacher. They sting! But when we appreciate them, we receive nothing but gifts.

                         Happy Mother’s Day!

Nettle Bouquet, watercolor and pencil, LH 2020

Witch Doctors

To return to my dying Asian pear tree that I wrote about a month ago: I finally did call the nursery. The horticulturalist assured me that the tree was certainly a Hosui variety – because Hosui get fire blight very easily – and he was certain it was fire blight.

“Pull it right out!” he commanded. “Fire blight will spread to the other trees.” He added that you have to be super vigilant with Hosui, which essentially means spraying Streptomycin in the spring when fire blight is a possibility. He said many people plant Kosui instead of the Hosui, but even that variety isn’t all that resistant. Not like Olympic, for example. “Orchardists are always pulling the Hosui and replanting with more resistant varieties.

I didn’t ask, “Why then, are you selling them?”

It turns out that my tree isn’t a Hosui or a Kosui – it’s a Niitaka.  And even though every leaf blackened and fell, I decided to try and save the tree using a poultice of carbonatite, clay, and aloe, and some rubbing and mumblings. After a week, I was excited to see that a few of the buds were plumping and showing some green tissue. Now a witch doctor is an interesting phenomenon.

Dr. Annette Weiner, Kwaibwaga Village, Trobriand Islands, 1989 

I had an experience firsthand when I lived with my anthropologist mother on a small coral atoll in New Guinea. Ours was an inland village, but one day some of my mother’s informants (the anthropological jargon for those who provide answers to the anthropologist’s questions) said, let’s go visit a coastal village. We walked a few miles over sharp coral to the far side of the island. As we neared the coastal village, I was struck by the trees we walked by. Their roots were above ground, tall intertwining webs formed tent-like structures that I could imagine hiding inside of. 

When we entered the village, we felt oddly unwelcomed. The men were out fishing and the women were wary. That’s when I got something in one of my eyes. A piece of dirt or an insect. My eye stung, but no one could see anything in it. After hanging out for only a short while, we turned around to make the trip home. The suspicious looks from the villagers didn’t feel good, and we didn’t want to cause trouble.

We traveled back through the forest of amazing trees, back along the rough coral trails, and finally entered our village towards nightfall. By the time we were back, I was feverish and dizzy. Word buzzed around the village. Questions were asked.  Had anyone said magic to protect me against flying witches. Flying witches inhabit the buttressed roots of those mysterious trees. Of course, the witches are jealous of young girls. They were certain that I had been attacked by a flying witch.

My mother was nervous. Even though she had aspirin and antibiotics to give me, and we were both taking quinine for malaria, she wondered what it could be. She was also fascinated to know what the villagers would do. They told her they had called a witch doctor from another village who specializes in flying witches. A skinny old man came in carrying his satchel of herbs. He checked me over, bending my limbs, looking into my eyes. He rubbed herbs into my skin and mumbled prayers. He was paid. And when my mother looked at him expectantly, he said, “The witch is only playing with your daughter; it won’t kill her.”

LH in Kwaibwaga Village in 1971 (fully recovered)

Norman Cousins, one of the early proponents of the mind-body connection, relates how when he visited the Schweitzer Hospital in Gabon, Africa, he commented to Dr. Schweitzer, “The local people are lucky to have access to the Schweitzer clinic and not have to depend on witch-doctor supernaturalism.” One look at Dr. Schweitzer and Cousins recognized his ignorance. The next day, Dr. Schweitzer took him to observe native African medicine. The witch doctor gave herbs in a brown paper bag to some patients and incantations in a brown paper bag to others, while still others he directed towards the Western doctor.

 Dr. Schweitzer explained the three groups. The first had what he called functional issues; these would go away easily and the herbs would help. The next group had what he called psychogenic problems, and they were treated with African psychotherapy. The third had physical problems, like a tumor or broken bone, and these he sent to the Western doctor. When Cousins pushed for an explanation, Schweitzer said,

The witch doctor succeeds for the same reason all the rest of us succeed. Each patient carries his own doctor inside him. They come to us knowing the truth. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides inside within each patient a chance to go to work.   

—From The Mysterious Placebo, Norman Cousins

I believe plants aren’t so different from us. There is a doctor inside the trees that I hope I can motivate. I don't know if it has fire blight or a fungal disease. But rather than pull it, I will wait and see if its own wisdom along with my herbs will help.