Stinging nettles: Classic or Dud?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

There rhizomes are endless, and they sting, but they do protect the land.

― Clipper Tony, Monday, 7 November 2005 13:17 (twenty years ago)

Kate got stung yesterday - poor Kate!

Dud for stinging. but classic for the tasty soup.

― Come Back Johnny B (Johnney B), Monday, 7 November 2005 13:22 (twenty years ago)

Pluck them by grasping under the bract tightly, and you won't get stung.

― Keith D., Monday, 7 November 2005 13:28 (twenty years ago)

when dogs go peepee on nettles, how come then never get stung on their cock?

― g-kit (g-kit), Monday, 7 November 2005 13:34 (twenty years ago)

Also, soak some nettles in some water overnight, then spray water over your crops and the bugs will keep off them. So double classic.

― Come Back Johnny B (Johnney B), Monday, 7 November 2005 13:35 (twenty years ago)

our crops?

― Ste (Fuzzy), Monday, 7 November 2005 13:38 (twenty years ago)

If your growing lettuces/ tomatoes/ beans etc on your allotment/ in your back garden. Nettles are nature's insecticide!

― Come Back Johnny B (Johnney B), Monday, 7 November 2005 13:40 (twenty years ago)

ooo arrrr

― Rumpie, Monday, 7 November 2005 13:40 (twenty years ago)

nettles are alright you just have to grab them the right way

― battlingspacemonkey (battlingspacemonkey), Monday, 7 November 2005 14:05 (twenty years ago)

I like the word for being stung by nettles: "urtication"

(although googling that word is *not* a good idea - the top hit includes the phrase "from the Nettle Sex FAQ")

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 7 November 2005 14:10 (twenty years ago)

I visited a Roman villa - I forget which one, Chedworth maybe - and was talking to one of the staff about how my house is built on the site of a former Roman manor house. We have terrible problems with stinging nettles in one particular part of the garden, nothing seems to get rid of them, and this guy said that it was probable that was the area used by the Roman family as their toilet because apparently stinging nettles have something to do with the Romans (did they introduce them to this country??) and nettles used to thrive on dung heaps or in the presence of urine or something. I really can't remember. There was some link between Roman Britain and nettles though. I wish I had paid more attention :(

― C J (C J), Monday, 7 November 2005 14:19 (twenty years ago)

i was going to say classic for wrapping around sensitive body parts but already several xposts.

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 7 November 2005 14:22 (twenty years ago)

john, i just find the word 'crops' amusing to the point you say it like we each all own 9 acres of fresh soil ready for sowing.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Monday, 7 November 2005 14:50 (twenty years ago)

or. maybe not. i'm being shit today.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Monday, 7 November 2005 14:53 (twenty years ago)

I had some excellent risotto w/nettles in Rome. That was pretty classic. Getting stung is duddish, although it's a really interesting feeling -- the initial slap before the stinging actually starts, where the skin kind of goes cold and numb, and you have that second or so of knowing and anticipating the pain without yet feeling it, and then the surging sharpness and welting. I was fascinated by them as a kid.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 7 November 2005 15:51 (twenty years ago)

i remember watching my mate fall into a 'sea' of nettles when we were young. he only had his shorts on. the amount of screaming afterwards. i thought he was going to die.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Monday, 7 November 2005 15:55 (twenty years ago)

Isn't the sting a palliative for rheumatoid arthritis symptons, ditto beestrings? Something about the body's response to the nettles/bees keeps the immune system from attacking the joints. Anyway I've never seen a nettle plant, I don't think -- one of those strange-O British Isles things!

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 7 November 2005 16:01 (twenty years ago)

They're also found in some areas in North America, but not very widely.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 7 November 2005 16:08 (twenty years ago)

They're all over Northern California. My gf hadn't been stung before, so when we were hiking recently I talked her into it. It is an odd sensation, and I forgot how long it lasts.

We had tons on my childhood property, and I practiced some folk remedy from the neighbor kids: cover the nettles with wet clayish mud and it stops the effect.

― andy --, Monday, 7 November 2005 17:28 (twenty years ago)

Last time I went backpacking, in the Blue Ridge Mountains (North Carolina), my first night out it was really dark and late when I set up camp, and I ended up sleeping right in the middle of a patch of stinging nettles. I had a sleeping bag to protect me, but that didn't do much good when I got up.

― viborgu, Monday, 7 November 2005 17:46 (twenty years ago)

i remember watching my mate fall into a 'sea' of nettles when we were young. he only had his shorts on

is it very wrong that i just laughed for ten seconds at this?

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 7 November 2005 23:19 (twenty years ago)

Once, as a child my father and I stopped at Fort Tejon on the way back from L.A. My father, a park service ranger and relatively accomplished botanist bent over to smell what he assumed was a mint plant and becaue it didn't smell of mint got in so close that he was able to discover that it was, in fact, a stinging nettle plant with his nose. I still giggle.

― M. White (Miguelito), Monday, 7 November 2005 23:23 (twenty years ago)

I fell into a big patch of nettles on my cousin's farm and got the little stingy fluffs ALL OVER my arms and hands. Owwie. Bastard to pick them all off/calm the skin down.

― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 7 November 2005 23:31 (twenty years ago)

They are tasty and healthy to eat! but tough to cook.

― Douglas (Douglas), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 00:12 (twenty years ago)

Ow, ow, ow, ow ow!!!

I did not know they were nettles. I thought they were just brambles of some kind until I ended up with three little red bumps on my little finger like a mutant spider attacked me.

Dud, dud, dud. I don't care if their soup is tasty. They hurt me and they must DIE!!!

― Streatham's Paisley Princess (kate), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 09:02 (twenty years ago)

Didn't you use any dot leaves?

― Ste (Fuzzy), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 09:25 (twenty years ago)

Couldn't find any.

And like I said, for the first half hour or so I thought it was just a bramble attack!

― Streatham's Paisley Princess (kate), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 09:26 (twenty years ago)

Oh, these pressing issues of the country. If nettles were human, they'd be hanging about cow pastures wearing hoodies.

Brambles are OK, though, cause they yield the BERRIES in the autmun.

― Streatham's Paisley Princess (kate), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 09:27 (twenty years ago)

Dot leaves always grow next to nettles. It's the law of nature!

― Ste (Fuzzy), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 09:30 (twenty years ago)

Dot leaves? I don't know what those are. Do you mean Dock leaves?

― Streatham's Paisley Princess (kate), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 09:31 (twenty years ago)

is that what they are called? my country-life childhood has now been tainted.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 09:45 (twenty years ago)

ooh, story. once i got a flat tire driving from austin to houston at night. so i pulled over onto the grassy median and changed the tire. it's dark, remember. so i finished changing the tire and my hand was all grimy. well, i'm surrounded by nice dewy grass, so i gave my hand a good hard wipe across the grass. only it wasn't grass at all. it was nettles.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 09:56 (twenty years ago)

classic, i've had hours & hours of fun stinging people.

― not-goodwin (not-goodwin), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 10:36 (twenty years ago)

DOT leaves? HA HA HA CITY BOY.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 11:33 (twenty years ago)

far from it, and that's what's so embarrassing.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 11:36 (twenty years ago)

Isn't dock the same as sorel?

― M. White (Miguelito), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 15:27 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, but sorel's a hard word to say.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 15:28 (twenty years ago)

johnny b please post your tasty soup recipe

― jones (actual), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 16:17 (twenty years ago)

ten years pass...

classic, only know them as rural hazard but want to cook them - any recipes?

― hunangarage, Saturday, 26 March 2016 07:07 (nine years ago)

I heard that native americans used to pick up bunches of nettles and flagelate their backs with them while running long distances. Supposed to help them keep going, sounds painful though.
So wonder if they're indigenous to N. America or came from Europe with settlers.

Also heard that nettles can help make non arable land arable. Something about helping introduce nitrates. I read it in a book called Ecological Imperialism I think but can't remember exact details.

Drinking nettle tea works as a diuretic so has been recommended to gout sufferers cos it helps wash out the causes of inflammation.
Not sure if you get same effect from eating but have heard they're highly nutritious. Think they have a lot of iron too.

― Stevolende, Saturday, 26 March 2016 08:02 (nine years ago)

native on both sides of the Atlantic apparently

Nettles have a long history as a treatment for rheumatism and muscle pain like sciatica. The Romans are credited with bringing seeds of this plant with them into Britain; by flogging themselves with the plants, they apparently kept warm in the colder northern climate. They would tie bunches of fresh nettles together and the afflicted area of the body was thrashed repeatedly to create heat in the limbs and to stimulate blood circulation.

― disco Polo (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 26 March 2016 08:30 (nine years ago)

Nettles wouldn't introduce nitrates, but they are really good at hoovering them up, which kind of locks them in and prevents them getting washed out of the soil by the rain etc

― François Pitchforkian (NickB), Saturday, 26 March 2016 08:40 (nine years ago)

So they're a good way of turning poop pits into green matter for instance

― François Pitchforkian (NickB), Saturday, 26 March 2016 08:41 (nine years ago)

Sat on a nettle yesterday

One of the all-time opening posts, this

― Laertiades (imago), Saturday, 26 March 2016 08:42 (nine years ago)

So I can blame the Romans for the face-high nettles that spring up suddenly alongside the footpath I walk along every day? Bloody Romans, what did they ever do for us, etc...

(also flogging yourself with nettles sounds like a remarkably unpleasant idea and much worse than just being cold, but hey, what do I know)

(spring up suddenly = I guess they're there all along but they seem to go from a few inches high to REALLY TALL within just a few days if it's warmish and then you get a day of rain)

― a passing spacecadet, Saturday, 26 March 2016 11:21 (nine years ago)

There is a snicket I like to use that becomes impassable in the summer with nettles. I have been trampling and kicking the spring nettles in the vain hope that they won't prevail this year.

― calzino, Saturday, 26 March 2016 11:33 (nine years ago)

nah you need to pour some deep root kill stuff on these shits, had a front garden full at my last hired home

― disco Polo (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 26 March 2016 11:37 (nine years ago)

I had a feeling those bastards wouldn't go down so easy. I'll probably continue my futile war of attrition on them until they defeat me!

― calzino, Saturday, 26 March 2016 11:43 (nine years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.