Its spring and the nettles patches are growing and I showed them in a post on the walk about and got asked a couple questions on them in the comments area..
So yes, these are indeed those owww. stinging nettles.. now young fresh nettles in the spring or the top two to three inches of fresh growth on older nettles are what you are ideally after, having said that, I also let them get full size, cut them in bundles and hang them to dry for animal use..
But we are talking about the best ways of them for people use.. so please use gloves and have your basket and your cutting tool and snip them off and into the basket..
Then wash them in cold fresh water till clean..
then you need to pick off the useful nettles and throw out for compost the stems..
Tea is always good, this is 3/4th nettles and 1/4th apple mint with some raw honey and will steep for five to ten min, after having boiling water poured over them, you can use a strainer, or a tea strainer, or a coffee fresh press.
The plants will continue to sting until they are either cooked or dried.. wilted nettles will still sting you, aged cold but still fresh nettles in the fridge days later will still sting you.. they need to be cooked to the wilted time or dried till crumbly for use.
I promised that I would also show a cooked, so I took half the plate, ran a knife over them a bit cutting the biggest leaves, put a bit of butter in the bottom of a pan, threw the nettles in and let them cook till dark dark green and well wilted, if you cook mustard greens or big older spinach leaves, you want a full wilt on these greens.. then I added in a cup of lovely pork bone broth, simmered till hot, added a tsp of sour cream and that was a light wonderful tasty breakfast!
Just another Day on the Farm 
Brilliant! Thank you for this wonderful post!
your welcome, please do come back and let me know how you like nettles after your first try, like all new plants, please start with just a tiny bit and then wait 2 hours and then repeat until working up to a regular full portions 🙂
YUMMY, sounds like Spring! Thanks!!
How’s your tongue, etc doing this morning??
Much, much better, the only thing that appears left is the crusty eyes this morning.. so that’s just awesome!
O that breakfast was so tasty! I am for sure going to be extra careful creating my meals around foods that heal..
SO simple at this time of year!
Trouble is, here at least, everything is growing at warp speed… I’m hoping that the pollinators can keep up with all of this accelerated growth, but it seems like bloom is out one day and gone the next, so I’m worried about poor coverage and resulting crop size.
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sooo….what do use use it for with your livestock? I’ve got tons of it and i need to utilize it.
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