| A few days ago I was out in the garden, trying to find a sunny, south-facing spot for my 12 new strawberry plants and I noticed something. The Bermuda grass was going to seed. Emergency! Emergency! All hands on deck! I dropped everything and started ripping the Bermuda grass up and tossing it in the yard waste bin. While I was doing this, I kept getting pricked (so I thought) by one particular weed that grew alongside the Bermuda grass.
With the Bermuda grass gone (at least in that one spot), I decided to begin removing the patio today. When my boyfriend came home, he helped me take out the large flat bricks that form about half of our yard (in addition to a cement patio in the back of the house). As we took out the individual bricks, we also removed the weeds growing in between them. That same f***ing weed kept stinging me, again and again. Finally I realized that I had whatever it was all over my clothes and now my clothes were stinging me. A change of clothes helped, but I continued to get stung as I worked.
Then I had a thought: Was this plant a stinging nettle? I went inside to check the internets. Hmm. The pictures of stinging nettles looked like the plant in my garden. A Google search for "sting weed California" came up with only sites about stinging nettles and sites about police sting operations to target marijuana in California. And one site said that stinging nettles particularly like to grow in soil that is very high in phosphorus (ours is... we just got our soil test results back).
So, back outside, this time with gloves, to gather enough of the miserable, painful plant to serve as a meal for dinner. I left some of it in the yard so that it could grow and provide us with future meals as well. Besides, according to the Jeavons book (How to Grow More Vegetables), stinging nettles:
"Helps neighboring plants to grow more resistant to spoiling." Increases essential oil content in many herbs. "Stimulates humus formation." Helps stimulate fermentation in compost piles. As a tea, it promotes plant growth and helps strengthen plants. Concentrates sulfur, potassium, calcium, and iron in its body.
The irony is that because I didn't realize that the painful weed I'd been swearing at in the garden WAS a stinging nettle, I was actually looking for seeds to plant some. (I'm a little embarrassed to admit that now.)
Handling the nettles in the kitchen using a potholder
Rinsing off the dirt
Toss 'em in the pan along with some olive oil, garlic, and salt
Very important: Cook them until they are wilted so they can no longer sting you
I served my enemy over rice and ate it right up! It was delicious. |
