URTica dioica
Nettle
From the agriculture Course:
Truly it is the greatest benefactor of plant growth in general, you will scarcely find another plant to replace it. If unobtainable you must get it dried from elsewhere.
It is a ‘Jack-of-all-Trades’
It carries within it the element which incorporates the spiritual and assimilates it everywhere, namely sulphur. The stinging nettle carries potassium and calcium in its currents and radiations, in addition it has a kind of iron radiation.
These iron radiations of the nettle are almost as beneficial to the whole course nature as our own iron radiations in blood. It should really grow around mans heart. It is wonderfully similar to what the heart is in the human organism with its marvelous inner working and inner organization. If ever a soil was to be liberated from too much iron planting nettles where they would do no harm . They are so fond of iron and draw it to themselves. Though this might not undermine the iron as such it would certainly undermine the influence iron has on plants growth in general.
To improve manure still more, take any stinging nettles you can get, let them fade, press together slightly and use in a case without bladder or intestines.
Simply bury the stuff in the earth.
Add a slight layer of peat-moss or the like so as to protect it from direct contact with the soil.
IT must be buried for a whole year.
The effect on the manure will be such that the manure becomes inwardly sensitive - truly sensitive and sentient, we might also say intelligent. IT will not suffer an un due decomposition in it or improper loss of nitrogen.
You will give the manure the faculty to make the earth into which it is worked intelligent. The soil will individualize itself, in nice relationships with the plants which are grown.
IT is like a permeation of the soil with reason and intelligence.
Stinging nettles help to improve the nitrogen content of the manure.
Take the whole plant at a time including the flowers and excluding the roots.
To counteract smut a ring of stinging nettles should be planted around the field.
From what I have see: The magnificent nettle. The complete servant. To the whole being of nature nettle does offer service. My time with the nettle has as most started with a stinging experience. It was introduced to me in combination with Dock as a cure to my burning skin.
In early spring if you have an interest, as you will need one to see them come. The nettles rise up from the earth with definition and confidence.
Not the confidence which shouting its self out for everyone to see with radiating color. Subtly they rise, gradually they come. So gradually that if you are not watching them you may not notice them until they are quite large. Apart from being aware of there places of growth to avoid stinging experiences, the young fresh growth is highly nutritious, tasty and easily prepared.
Especially after a winter, animals and humans alike can benefit greatly from a regular intake of fresh nettles. When they grow to a good height ( over a meter) and there flowers have started to form they can be harvested for the BD preparation and dried for later use.
The complex root system which is said to be one of the most dense has a compelling yellow color. They too have many uses.
Last year I cut some nettles for the chickens at Sturts farm. This was my first active engagement with the plant.
This year I have enjoyed many cups of nettle tea, eaten delicious nutritious meals. Smoking it was tried, it burned well and had a strong taste.
Mixed with comfrey 50/50 we stuffed a couple of containers full added water and watched and smelled as over time they rotted down. The smell did change from barely anything to quite pleasant rich earthy smell and later to more of a rotten smell (ammonia and hydrogen sulphide) which permeated my skin on contact and was very difficult to wash out. We removed the majority of the plant fiber to slow the process. A white cream looking skin has formed on top of the liquid . The flies are attracted to it. We diluted this 10/1 and added it to the tomatoes and the peppers as a tonic.
The most useful thing will hopefully prove to be the nettles which we cut, bunched and left to dry in the barn. They will be a supplement to the cows in the winter who loose condition while eating hay.
We put a load of nettles into the earth for the year. This was done in the walled garden, meters from where they were cut from. The sense of aw did pervade as we gave the plant to the earth.. Compared to the other preps. Who require a process and are encased in something before being buried this plant lies alone in the earth. I have heard that this is due to its high astral potential or closeness to actuality, possibly this is seen by the silica tipped hairs which come off it, in the same way animals have skin and hair.
In the soil the rhizomes radiate horizontally in all directions, these are divided by nodes from which clumps of roots emerge and pairs of new plantlets grow upwards. The sulphur- yellow older roots bring about well structured and dried out soil. The bring order and fertility. The shoot and rhizomes look tinged with red and violet.
From the cotyledons, the spiky needles continue up the stem even on the flowers to the top of the plant. The leaves form cross wise and opposite. The flowers are possibly the most in conspicuous part of the plant. The nettle is dioeciously; the yellow- green pollen-bearing flowers are not on the same plant as the whitish-green fruit-forming flowers. The pollen flowers look like square packets tied up. The stamens on the corners bend away from the center during growth. On a sunny day they will explode and actively expel there pollen in clouds. This plant does not rely animals. Each tiny white flower is an egg shaped nut.
They grow in dense dark-green colonies, impermeable to other vegetation. The light does not reach the ground as their leaves spread and nit together forming a blanket of photosynthesis.
The stinging hairs are like minute needles, the siliceous tips break off when touched and under pressure release a fluid which causes intense stinging. The thin calcified shaft penetrates the skin and releases the stinging fluid sodium formate, choline and histidine.
The soil transformed by nettle has a pleasant smell which accompanied with the color of the roots gives the feeling of a flower under the soil.
Above the soil nettle has the ability to transform dead plant matter into life giving humus. Excess nitrogen and iron are withdrawn. A 24hr cold extract will remove all traces of aphids. A liquid left to mature diluted suitably will promote growth. For humans they purify the blood and help rheumatic conditions.
In the BD preparation the natural properties are developed further.
( Information in this paragraph being gathered from Jochen Bockemuhl and Karl Jarvinen’s book ‘Extraordinary plant Qualities for Biodynamics’ and ‘The Biodynamic Spray and compost preparations production methods’ booklet 1 form the Biodynamic agricultural association.)
From Wikipedia.com:
Recent research has revealed the cause of the sting to be from three chemicals – a
histamine that irritates the skin,
acetylcholine which causes a burning sensation and
serotonin, that encourages the other two chemicals
Stinging nettle has many uses. It is used by many different cultures for a wide variety of purposes in
herbal medicine and is known to have been used as far back as
ancient Greece. Cooking, crushing or chopping disables the stinging hairs. Stinging nettle leaves are high in nutrients, and the leaves can be mixed with other ingredients to create a soup rich in
calcium and
iron. Nettle soup was a good source of nutrients for people who lacked meat or fruit in their diets, and still is. The young leaves are edible and make a very good
pot-herb. The leaves are also dried and may be then be used to make a
tisane, as can also be done with the nettle's flowers. Because stinging nettle usually grows at
nitrogen-rich places, it often contains high concentrations of
nitrate which can be converted in the
digestive tract to
carcinogenic nitrosamines and should therefore not be used for baby food
Nettle stems contain a
baste fiber which has been traditionally used for the same purposes as
linen, and is produced by a similar
retting process.
In
Great Britain the stinging nettle is the only common stinging plant, and has found a place in several
figures of speech in the
English language. To "nettle" someone is to annoy them.
Shakespeare's
Hot spur urges that "out of this nettle, danger, we grasp this flower, safety" (
Henry IV, part 1, Act II Scene 3). The common figure of speech "to grasp the nettle" probably originated as a condensation of this quotation. It means to face up to or take on a problem that has been ignored or deferred. The
metaphor refers to the fact that if a nettle leaf is grasped firmly rather than brushed against, it does not sting so readily, because the hairs are crushed down flat and do not penetrate the skin so easily. However the sting of nettles has been recommended to relieve the pain of rheumatism as the effects of the sting can last up to twelve hours.
The Nettle tribe, Urticaceae, is widely spread over the world and contains about 500 species, mainly tropical, though several, like our common Stinging Nettle, occur widely in temperate climates. Many of the species have stinging hairs on their stems and leaves. Two genera are represented in the British Isles, Urtica, the Stinging Nettles, and Parietaria, the Pellitory. Formerly botanists included in the order Urticaceae the Elm family, Ulmaceae; the Mulberry, Fig and Bread Fruit family, Moraceae; and that of the Hemp and Hop, Cannabinacece; but these are now generally regarded as separate groups.
The British species of Stinging Nettle, belonging to the genus Urtica (the name derived from the Latin, uro, to burn), are well known for the burning properties of the fluid contained in the stinging hairs with which the leaves are so well armed. Painful as are the consequences of touching one of our common Nettles, they are far exceeded by the effects of handling some of the East Indian species: a burning heat follows the sensation of pricking, just as if hot irons had been applied, the pain extending and continuing for many hours or even days, attended by symptoms similar to those which accompany lockjaw. A Java species, U. urentissima, produces effects wh
ich last for a whole year, and are even said to cause death. U. crenulato and U. heterophylla, both of India, are also most virulent. Another Indian species, U. tuberosa, on the other hand, has edible tubers, which are eaten either raw, boiled or roasted, and considered nutritious.
The male flower consists of a perianth of four greenish segments enclosing an equal number of stamens. They explode as mentioned above. The flowers are thus adapted for wind-fertilization. The perianth of the female flower is similar, but only contains a single, one-seeded carpel, bearing one style with a brush-like stigma. The male flowers are in loose sprays or racemes, the female flowers more densely clustered together.
'Nettle in, dock out.
Dock rub nettle out!'
The common name of the Nettle, or rather its Anglo-Saxon and also Dutch equivalent, Netel, is said to have been derived from Noedl (a needle), possibly from the sharp sting, or, as Dr. Prior suggests, in reference to the fact that it was this plant that supplied the thread used in former times by the Germanic and Scandinavian nations before the general introduction of flax, Net being the passive participle of ne, a verb common to most of the Indo-European languages in the sense of 'spin' and 'sew' (Latin nere, German na-hen, Sanskrit nah, bind). Nettle would seem, he considers, to have meant primarily that with which one sews.
After the Nettles had been cut, dried and steeped, the fiber was separated with instruments similar to those used in dressing flax or hemp, and then spun into yarn, used in manufacturing every sort of cloth, cordage, etc., usually made from flax or hemp. Green (Universal Herbal, 1832) says this yarn was particularly useful for making twine for fishing nets, the fiber of the Nettle being stronger than those of flax and not so harsh as those of hemps.
The greatest objection to its extensive employment is the necessity of growing it in rich, deep soil, for otherwise the fiber produced is short and coarse, and on land fitted for it flax can be grown at less cost compared to the value of the seed and fiber yielded.
Forty kilograms were calculated to provide enough stuff for one shirt
Nettle is described as the only efficient cotton substitute.
The length of the Nettle fiber varies from 3/4 inch to 2 1/2 inches: all above 1 3/8 inch is equal to the best Egyptian cotton.
when examined under the microscope, magnification showed that it had a glass-like surface, devoid of the serrations which endow wool as a fiber for textile production
In 1917 some 70,000 hectares of Nettles were cultivated, and it is thought possible to plant a million hectares of lowlands, giving a yield of Nettle fibers that would cover about 18 per cent of Germany's cotton requirements.
the Nettle not only supplying a substitute for cotton, but for such indispensable articles as sugar, starch, protein and ethyl alcohol.
The analysis of the fresh Nettle shows the presence of formic acid, mucilage, mineral salts, ammonia, carbonic acid and water. It is the formic acid in the Nettle, with the phosphates and a trace of iron, which constitute it such a valuable food.
Medicinally: Nettle is anti-asthmatic: the juice of the roots or leaves, mixed with honey or sugar, will relieve bronchial and asthmatic troubles and the dried leaves, burnt and inhaled, will have the same effect
The seeds have also been used in consumption, the infusion of herb or seeds being taken in wineglassful doses. The seeds and flowers used to be given in wine as a remedy for ague. The powdered seeds have been considered a cure for goiter and efficacious in reducing excessive corpulence.
For stimulating hair growth, the old herbalists recommended combing the hair daily with expressed Nettle juice. The homoeopathic tincture of Nettle is made of 2 OZ. of the herb to 1 pint of proof spirit.
The powder of the dried herb is administered in doses of 5 to 10 grains.
A quaint old superstition existed that a fever could be dispelled by plucking a Nettle up by the roots, reciting thereby the names of the sick man and also the names of his parents.
When dried, the proportion of albuminoid matter in Nettles is as high as in linseed cake and the fat content is also considerable. cows will relish them and give more milk than when fed on hay alone.
The Nettle is also of great use to the keeper of poultry. Dried and powdered finely and put into the food, it increases egg-production and is healthy and fattening. The seeds are also said to fatten fowls. Turkeys, as well as ordinary poultry, thrive on Nettles chopped small and mixed with their food, and pigs do well on boiled Nettles
Although in Britain upwards of thirty insects feed solely on the Nettle plant, flies have a distaste for the plant, and a fresh bunch of Stinging Nettles will keep a larder free from them.
The juice of the Nettle, or a decoction formed by boiling the green herb in a strong solution of salt, will curdle milk, providing the cheese-maker with a good substitute for rennet. The same juice, if rubbed liberally into small seams in leaky wooden tubs coagulates and will render them once more watertight.
A decoction of Nettle yields a beautiful and permanent dye.
Rain Tree Tropical plant Database:
Common names: Nettle, big string nettle, common nettle, stinging nettle, gerrais, isirgan, kazink, nabat al nar, ortiga, grande ortie, ortie, urtiga, chichicaste, brennessel, gross d’ortie, racine d’ortie
The species name dioica means 'two houses' because the plant usually contains either male or female flowers. In Brazilian herbal medicine the entire plant is used for excessive menstrual bleeding, diarrhea, diabetes, urinary disorders and respiratory problems including allergies. Externally, an infusion is used for skin problems. In Peru nettle is used against a variety of complaints such as muscular and arthritis pain, eczema, ulcers, asthma, diabetes, intestinal inflammation, nosebleeds and rheumatism
The stinging sensation of the leaf hairs is caused by several plant chemicals including formic acid, histamine, serotonin, and choline. In addition to these chemicals, nettle leaf is rich in minerals, chlorophyll, amino acids, lecithin, carotenoids, flavonoids, sterols, tannins and vitamins. The root of the plant has other chemicals such as scopoletin, sterols, fatty acids, polysaccharides and isolectins. Several of nettle's lectin chemicals have demonstrated marked antiviral actions (against HIV and several common upper respiratory viruses). Other chemicals (flavonoids in the leaves and a lectin in the root) have been documented with interesting immune stimulant actions in preliminary research which led researchers to suggest that the lectin might be useful in the treatment of systemic lupus.
Nettle's main plant chemicals include: acetophenone, acetylcholine, agglutinins, alkaloids, astragalin, butyric acid, caffeic acids, carbonic acid, chlorogenic acid, chlorophyll, choline, coumaric acid, folacin, formic acid, friedelins, histamine, kaempherols, koproporphyrin, lectins, lecithin, lignans, linoleic acid, linolenic acid, neoolivil, palmitic acid, pantothenic acid, quercetin, quinic acid, scopoletin, secoisolariciresinol, serotonin, sitosterols, stigmasterol, succinic acid, terpenes, violaxanthin, and xanthophylls.
Research:
While nettle's benefit for prostatitis is most probably related to its documented anti-inflammatory properties demonstrated in the arthritis and rhinitis research, it's effect on BPH is quite different - it works on a hormonal level.
In clinical research, nettle has demonstrated the ability to stop the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone (by inhibiting an enzyme required for the conversion), as well as to directly bind to sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) itself - thereby preventing SHBG from binding to other hormones. Other research also reveals that nettles can prevent SHBG that has already bound to a hormone from attaching to the receptor sites on the prostate, as well as to decrease the production of estrogens (estradiol and estrone) by inhibiting an enzyme required for their production. Most all of the complex intercellular processes required to trigger the prostate to grow new cells and enlarge seems to be inhibited by nettle.
While no clinical studies have been conducted yet on the use of nettle in treating dihydrotestosterone
DHT-related hair loss and male pattern balding, research does indicate that nettle root can prevent the conversion of testosterone to DHT.
Consumers just need to remember that the root is much better for BPH and hair loss, while the leaf is better for inflammation (including prostatitis), allergies, and as a natural diuretic for people with hypertension.
Traditional Preparation: Both the root and the leaves are traditionally prepared as infusions. Dosages depend on what one is taking it for. In herbal medicine systems, as a healthy prevention to prostate difficulties or to maintain prostate health, one-half cup of a root infusion 2-3 times weekly is recommended (2-3 ml of a remedy for BPH is one-half cup of a root infusion 2-3 times daily for 30-90 days. (2-3 ml of a root tincture or 2-3 g in capsules or tablets 2-3 times daily can be substituted if desired.) For allergies, inflammation, and hypertension: one cup of a leaf infusion is taken twice daily in traditional medicine systems. This also can be substituted by taking 3-4 g of leaf tablets/capsules twice daily.
Discovering the Folk Lore of Plants: Nettle oil precedes paraffin. They drive frogs from bee hives. Stone fruits and tomatoes rapped in nettle leaves travel better, retain their freshness and store better.
Nettle aids nose bleeding, dog bites, kidney stones.
Baked with sugar it said to make the vital spirits fresh and lively. A lineament of nettles, salt and oil protect against cold especially if rubbed on spine, soles of feet and wrists, this sis said by Guernsey fishermen.
If they’d eat nettles in March
And Mugwort in May,
So many fine maidens,
Wouldn’t go to the clay.
Tyroleans threw nettle on the fire to avert thunderstorms and gathering nettles before sunrise to protect cattle against evil spirits. Nettles well beaten with sticks on the day of the first new moon in May will wither and not grow again was the Herefordshire view.
The plant was protective against evil and witchcraft and the well dried stems made very good whistles. It was also know as the ‘ Naughty mans play thing’ , ‘Devils apron’ - because Satan used its powers to protect himself.
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