Struth they hurt a lot.

A fair few have infiltrated the garden and insist on stinging me nearly to death as I try and hunt them down.

Brutal they are.

Sounds disgusting but Nettle Soup is delicious.

I thought this was a thread about Bergerac.

Even the largest town in the Périgord Pourpre département can have it's own fair share of nettle problems. I'm not sure if French nettles hurt more or make tastier soup though.

I`ts a fact, treat them exactly as you would with spinach or watercress, olive oil, garlic, fine diced onion, sweat, add a choice stock, veg or chicken, about 200 grams of chopped potato for every 200 grams of nettles, chop, sweat, boil and blend, season to taste, i`ll take nettles over watercress or spinach any day, wear gloves though , I will never forget the day the wheels of my MTB dropped of the edge of a railway embankment, shorts and a t shirt neck deep in nettles and of course the only thing you care about is staying upright and traveling forward and saving the bike, by the time I had gone over 2 or three times the clothes I had on were about as much use as a strawberry net, by the time I got home I was like an extra from the second series of the X-Files

Excellent on the compost heap as they speed up the rotting process.

Alternatively, cut the roots off and put in a bucket of water. Leave for a couple of weeks, then use the solution (1:10 with water) around the garden as a nitrogen rich fertilizer - especially good for growing tomato plants!
The solution will stink after a while, so store it down the garden!!



Nearly forgot - they are a haven for wildlife too, so it's important to leave a patch if you can!

I think nettles need to change their PR guy. What a useful plant.

Does this make it awkward to hold the spoon?

Not really, unless you only have mittens

You'll be devastated to hear that was exactly the gag I was preparing to crack.

But of course my delivery would've been better.

Very true but they do need too be in a sunny spot for butterflies to lay eggs on

Those butterflies must be really tough cookies.

It's the caterpillars you should feel sorry for - fancy hatching out and finding you live in the middle of a minefield...?!!

There's plenty of nettles about without me keeping them in my garden, butterflys have wings and are quite capable of flying to woods and fields and the like where there are plenty of nettles to lay their eggs on.

Aye. Well away from my veg. But they don't do they.

It's all part of the food chain - I have lots of nettles, lots of butterflies, caterpillars and hence, birds!

Wouldn't be without any of them - and I grow my own veg too!

Encountered some more hidden nettles of the huge variety cutting part of the hedge this evening. Tried to pull them up roots and all but I just know that they have left enough behind to sprout again later in the season. They hide amongst my shrubs and giant ferns waiting for a bare leg or arm to come within reach. I think that there is more than a hint of Triffid about them.

All of the nettles in the garden have now been pulled up, their roots have gone in the dustbin and the rest of the plant chopped up and on to the compost heap. (Beware of doing this later in the season if the nettles have produced seed and your heap doesn't get hot enough to do away with them.) One or two bits of root have no doubt been left behind and will grow again to lie in wait for some unsuspecting victim.

Until that time I can rest easy.

Nettles are usually a sign of highly fertile ground. Try moving a root and re-planting - it'll never happen.
Usually very successful around the base of a compost bin where nutrient levels are high or where gardeners use artificially high nutrients like Miracle Grow and the like.