Nettle is considerated as a nuisance and a weed, but it has a lot of helping and medicinal properties. It's used in herb medicin for it's slime resolving qualities and as a bloodcleaning and strenghtening and diuretic medicin. The leaves are used as a tisane. An extract made from the roots can also be used against hair loss and dandruff.
The young leaves are used in salads, nettle soup, nettle cheese and shortly cooked as spinach. A lot of beautiful butterflies like the peacock butterfly, the small tortoiseshell butterfly and the Atalanta use the nettle as feed for their caterpillars. Hardy perennial. Height: 120 cm.
Outdoor sowing: February - October
Germination: 5 - 10 days
Germination temp. : 10 - 20 °C
Sowing depth: shallow
Plant distance: 10 - 25 cm
Plant position: sunny with half shade
Harvest period: May - October
Sow from February on a sunny plot with some shade. Nettle grows on any type of soil, disturbed soil, moist soil along brooks or rivers, in sandy and clay soil. Broadcast the seeds or sow in rows about 15 cm apart. Press the seeds in gently or rake them in. Don't cover the seeds because nettle is a light germinator. Keep moist. Thin the seedlings to about 20 cm apart. Use the thinned seedlings in soup or salad. Nettle can cover a whole garden when they get the space, so block the bottom of the pot or soil with concrete to prevent the nettle from proliferating in your whole garden.
