Tuesday I harvested a big bowl of dead nettle from an area where the dogs do not go, then rinsed it well, left it on a towel to dry for a while, then picked the leaves off the stem. I mostly use the dried leaves for making a tea. The leaves can be left to dry on a towel or they can be dehydrated. I had planned to dehydrate them but then decided to trim back some of the other herbs that have gotten a bit sad looking during the winter.
I trimmed some of the long branches on the bay leaf trees, trimmed back the rosemary, cut some of the green tops off the walking onions and cut back some of the parsley.
I ended up with quarts of bay leaves, green onions and dead needle; and pints of parsley and rosemary.
I must have gotten sidetracked when taking the jars out of the vacuum pot because when I looked at the pictures, I had the green onions, bay leaves, parsley and rosemary and I knew I had a jar of dead nettle. It was still in the vacuum pot!
I plan to always have parsley, rosemary and bay leaves fresh in the garden or in the greenhouse but you never know . . I could lose any of those so I try to always make sure I have some dried on hand. The dead nettle won’t be around long so I’ll harvest more of that tomorrow. I’d like to end up with at least 6 quarts of that.
RuthW in MD says
I’m thinking that “dead needle” is actually “dead nettle.” Lots of dried green stuff there.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
“Dead nettle” is not “dead”. 🙂 How confusing. I’m glad I wasn’t the one who came up with the name for it but if I had, it would probably have been even worse. If you’re familiar with nettle, it has tiny, close to microscopic hairs that sting and it feels like a bee sting. I knew about it but had never encountered it til we moved to Texas. I would be out pulling weeds and swear there were invisible bees that would sting me. I would go inside, run cold water over my hands and I could see little raised up “stings” but I could never find a bee or any kind of insect that was causing the pain. I googled “What is stinging me in my garden that I cannot see” and . . stinging nettle came up. Yep, that’s what was growing everywhere in my garden. According to NIH, it is edible. I will not go into the lack of confidence I have in NIH but I will say I will NOT eat stinging nettle.
Dead nettle is not part of the nettle family but is in the mint family. Dead nettle does not sting and therefore, someone called it “dead” nettle.
Do not ask me why dead nettle even has nettle in the name. I’m sure the info is on the internet somewhere but . . that’s a project for another day! 🙂
ginnyclyne says
I have never heard of dead nettle, what do you use it for?