Re: source of nettle seeds

[Allan Balliett]

Folks -

One year I cut my seeding nettle back and put the cuttings in the compost pile. I thought my chopping preceded the maturity of the seed, but apparently not. I applied that compost in the fall and in the spring I had, well, a cover crop of nettle plants everywhere I had put down the compost. My experience was different than Hugh's: my nettle from seed grew to nice 4 ft plants in very short order. More seedling emerged throughout the season, however. Weeding was so much more invigorating that season!! You just never knew when a handful of what you grabbed was going to have bite to it!

Last year I transplanted a bunch of these plants to a raised bed at Blue Ridge. I did this in June. by October the patch had been harvested for tea three times and still was looking very robust, with many new plants coming up, I believe, from the roots of the established plants. I've always been told that nettle needs some shade and lots of moisture. In this bed, they received neither.

Just my two cents

-Allan