Be Nice to Nettles Week

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in London

Be Nice to Nettles Week

These much maligned plants have a special week devoted to them. They have been used for centuries as food and medicine and are the favoured habitat of some of our favourite butterflies. There are events up and down the country so put your long trousers on and get outside!

Saturday, May 20 Be Nice to Nettles Week
1-3pm Waterlow Park
Various nettley events. Try some nettle tea have a go at a nettle quiz; learn more about these stinging plants. Booking required.
Phone: 0208 348 8716
Address: Highgate Hill
Waterlow Park
London, N6 5HG

Saturday 27th May, 2006 Nettle Day
10:00 am - 5:00 pm

The Natural History Museum
A free event organised by the Natural History Museum. Celebrate the common nettle, as part of National Be Nice to Nettles Week, and discover that there's much more to this intriguing plant than just its sting. Join us to unearth the nettle's many uses throughout the ages, both in Britain and in other parts of the world, with talks, demonstrations and displays throughout the Museum - you can even try some nettle-based refreshments.
Contact Caroline Ware on 020 7942 5000.

"Stingers are a vital part of growing up, giving us one of the most painful early memories of close contact with nature.
It is much later in life that most of us realise just how valuable they are, especially for some of our most beautiful wild creatures.
Without stinging nettles, peacock, small tortoiseshell and red admiral butterflies would have nowhere to lay their eggs, so do please find a space for nettles somewhere in your neighbourhood."

Professor Chris Baines
Environmentalist and Broadcaster

Treatments from nettles

As well as the nutritional value people have exploited the medicinal properties of the stinging nettle. Culpeper recommended the use of nettles to '...consume the phlegmatic superfluities in the body of man, that the coldness and moisture of winter has left behind". He also prescribed the juice of the leaves as a treatment for gangrenes and scabies. Native Americans used the fresh leaves to treat aches and pains. European herbalists used the leaves in a similar fashion to treat gout and arthritis. Surprisingly, although the nettle sting is highly irritant, once dried to neutralise the acid the leaves are natural anti-histamine and also have anti-asthmatic properties. The dried powdered leaves can also be used to staunch the flow of blood from small cuts. In recent times the nettle has also been found to be effective in the treatment of benign prostate hypertrophy.

Food from nettles

People have eaten the nettle for many centuries and at one point would have been relished as springtime treat! Pepys wrote in his diary of having eaten '...some nettle porridge, which was very good'.

Nutritionally the nettle is an excellent source of calcium, magnesium, iron and numerous trace elements as well as a range of vitamins. The young shoots can be used in soups and stews and in place of spinach.

Nettle Soup
Ingredients
1 onion, chopped
8 large handfuls young nettle tops, chopped
25g/1oz butter
25g/1oz flour
1L/2pt good chicken stock
salt and pepper
cream (optional)

Method
1. Cook the onion and nettle tops in the butter until soft.
2. Add the flour and cook for about 3 minutes, stirring, then add the stock and season well. Bring to the boil, simmer for 5 minutes and then sieve.
3. Re-heat, adjust the seasoning and add a little cream if desired.