Stinging Nettle (Urtica Dioica) - Foraging UK -

Today we're taking a look at Common Stinging Nettles - a plant that has many different edible parts and different flavours throughout the season. Starting with fresh spring growth of the leaves and then moving on to the seeds and later in the year to stock and cordial with the older stalks.
We'll be diving into the identification of Stinging Nettles to make sure we're correctly identifying them, we'll also take a look at the lookalike which is dead nettles (although they too are edible so nothing to panic about)
During the session, we'll have a think about plenty of different ways we can eat and enjoy Stinging Nettles from sweet to savoury dishes.
For a written identification guide visit here:
totallywilduk....

[@wolfenstein6676]

It seems to be recommended that when the plant goes to seed that we stop eating the leaves, however, it's also often mentioned too that if we cut the nettle plant back and wait for the new growth we can start eating the leaves once again. Have you ever done this?

[@totallywilduk6228]

Absolutely, if you cut the shoots back to the ground the leaves will grow back through fresh again, a bit like cut and grow again spinach :) For the shoots once they've gone to seed, there's a build up of calcium in the leaves and some people believe it could cause bladder stones or gall stones but I've never read any solid research about this. Have you read anything on it?

[@wolfenstein6676]

@@totallywilduk6228 It's just a case of removing all the leaves from the stem and then waiting for the new leaves to sprout from the stem, in that case, or do we need to cut the stem down to the root base? I've never seen any data verifying the reasons for not eating the leaves after the plant seeds, it's just something that several folk have mentioned over the years.

[@zobmie9785]

I’m pretty sure you can eat the leaves if you boil them

[@totallywilduk6228]

Hey, you're absolutely right, if you boil the leaves you can enjoy them like that :)