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A Much-Maligned Wild Green

Ask any British child to name the plant they most fear, and the stinging nettle will win by a country mile. Yet for centuries before we learned to dread it, Urtica dioica was regarded as one of the most useful plants in the hedgerow — food, medicine, dye, and cloth. Roman soldiers are said to have flogged their aching limbs with nettles to warm themselves, and country folk have long insisted that a nettle grasped firmly, so the hairs are crushed rather than pricked, has no sting to give. That trick is worth knowing, but I would not stake a bare hand on it. Wear gloves.

The sting itself is a clever piece of engineering: a hollow silica hair that snaps and delivers a cocktail of formic acid, histamine and serotonin. Dock leaves soothe partly by their coolness and partly by the distraction of rubbing. They are a comfort, not an antidote — but then folklore has always been more about coping than curing.

Knowing When and Where to Pick

The prime season runs from late February, when the first tight green tops push through the dead stems, until the plants begin to flower in June or July. This is when the leaves are tender, sweet and at their most versatile. Once nettles flower, the leaves develop gritty mineral crystals called cystoliths, which are hard on the kidneys and tough on the palate. You can still take the seeds later, but for eating, stop at the flower buds.

Where you pick matters as much as when. Choose:

• Large, clean stands well away from roads, where exhaust and tyre dust settle.
• Ground above knee height, out of the reach of dogs and livestock.
• Places you know have not been sprayed — verges, field margins and railway land are often treated.
• Dry mornings after dew has lifted, when the plants are at their crispest.

Avoid anything growing on a footpath edge, in a grazed paddock, or beside a busy lane. However romantic the foraging, food poisoning is not a folk remedy.

Picking Safely and Kindly

Take a basket or a cloth bag rather than a plastic one; nettles sweat and spoil quickly when sealed. A pair of gardening gloves is ideal, and scissors make for a cleaner job than tugging. Pinch or snip the top four to six leaves — the growing tip — which encourages the plant to bush out rather than stripping a whole stem. Work through a big stand, taking a little from many plants instead of everything from one.

If you do get stung, don't rub. A cool rinse, a dab of dock or plantain, or a little diluted vinegar will ease it. The sensation usually fades within ten minutes, though it can linger if you are sensitive.

Nettle Soup, Tea and Other Kitchen Uses

Thirty seconds in boiling water destroys the sting completely, and what remains is a deep, green, faintly spinachy flavour with a pleasant mineral edge. The classic is nettle soup: soften an onion and a diced potato in butter, add a litre of stock and a carrier bag of washed nettle tops, simmer for ten minutes, then blend with a splash of cream or a swirl of yoghurt. It freezes beautifully.

Other things worth trying:

• Nettle tea: a handful of fresh leaves in a mug, covered with just-boiled water and steeped for five minutes. Light, grassy and full of iron.
• Nettle crisps: toss dry leaves in a little oil and salt, then bake at 150°C until they shatter.
• Nettle pesto: blanch the leaves first, then blitz with walnuts, garlic, hard cheese and rapeseed oil.
• Nettle beer and nettle pudding: old country recipes, still made in a few kitchens and well worth reviving.

Only pick leaves you will use the same day, and never eat nettles raw.

Spinning Stings into String

By late summer the stems have grown tall and woody, and this is when the plant gives its other great gift: fibre. Nettle bast — the strong outer layer of the stem — has been spun into cloth in Britain, Scandinavia and central Europe for thousands of years. It is stronger than flax and takes a dye beautifully.

The traditional method is simple, if slow. Cut stems in late summer or early autumn, leave them to wilt, then strip the outer fibres from the woody core. Retting — soaking the stems in water for a week or two — makes the fibres easier to free. Once dried, they can be twisted into cordage by rolling two strands together against your thigh, or spun into thread. A metre of decent nettle string takes perhaps twenty minutes, and it will hold a ridge pole or lash a bean frame all season.

Leaving Enough for the Hedgerow

Nettles are the larval food plant of the small tortoiseshell, peacock, comma and red admiral butterflies, and a larder for countless moths, aphids and the birds that feed on them. A nettle patch left to flower and set seed in late summer is one of the best bits of wildlife gardening you can do — and it costs you nothing.

So pick lightly, take the tops, leave the flowers, and never clear a whole stand. The hedgerow has fed us for centuries on exactly that bargain, and it is one worth keeping.