After six days of being cooped up inside, only venturing out to go for early-morning runs or to have safe-distance chats with friends on the doorstep, yesterday I decided it was time to go down to the allotment and get my hands in the soil.
Being out on the plot felt super blissful, and it was a joy to feel the warmth of the sun and to see everything starting to come to life. So many shoots, buds and ...weeds! I love the humble weed and am very tolerant of them on my plot. A weed, as they say, is simply a plant in the wrong place, and with many of them having so many beneficial uses, I welcome most all of them! (Except bindweed. Don't talk to me about bindweed.) I find it hard to remove even the most invasive things like dandelion and plantain from my veg beds, because part of me sees their uprooting as a murderous waste of good salad, wine and tincture material.
Yesterday, I zeroed in on some particularly nutritious new growth: stingy nettles! There's a particular corner of my plot where they love to grow, which is fantastic because they have many medicinal benefits and are a good source of vitamins and iron. Spring is a great time to pick nettle tops, as this is when they're at their most nutritious. So, gloves at the ready, a bag of nettle tops was swiftly picked, along with a good haul of perpetual spinach leaves from one of the beds. Despite the name, perpetual spinach is not actually a spinach, but a very hardy and long-lasting member of the beet family - basically it's a type of chard. All very confusing.
Both of these greens can be used as you would use spinach leaves: sautéed, steamed, in curries or soups... I decided to chop everything up, throw it in a pan and sautée the medley with some garlic and butter. Et voila! That's half of dinner sorted.
If you try this at home (and I heartily recommend you do - it's super cheap, easy and nutritious), remember to give everything a good wash and wear gloves to handle the nettles. As with any foraging activity, you need to make sure you have positively identified any plant before using it, be mindful of how much you pick, and try only a little bit first to see a) whether you like it, and b) what effect it has on you. There's plenty of good foraging advice out there, so please do your own research if you're unsure. I'm just here to share my own forays with you - and hopefully inspire you to see what's growing around you with new eyes.
And if you're not convinced about using nettles as a spinach substitute after all - try using the leaves for tea! They also make an excellent liquid fertiliser, bunged in a bucket of water and left to steep for about a week or so. Make sure you keep a lid on it though, it's a pretty smelly affair!
Being out on the plot felt super blissful, and it was a joy to feel the warmth of the sun and to see everything starting to come to life. So many shoots, buds and ...weeds! I love the humble weed and am very tolerant of them on my plot. A weed, as they say, is simply a plant in the wrong place, and with many of them having so many beneficial uses, I welcome most all of them! (Except bindweed. Don't talk to me about bindweed.) I find it hard to remove even the most invasive things like dandelion and plantain from my veg beds, because part of me sees their uprooting as a murderous waste of good salad, wine and tincture material.
Yesterday, I zeroed in on some particularly nutritious new growth: stingy nettles! There's a particular corner of my plot where they love to grow, which is fantastic because they have many medicinal benefits and are a good source of vitamins and iron. Spring is a great time to pick nettle tops, as this is when they're at their most nutritious. So, gloves at the ready, a bag of nettle tops was swiftly picked, along with a good haul of perpetual spinach leaves from one of the beds. Despite the name, perpetual spinach is not actually a spinach, but a very hardy and long-lasting member of the beet family - basically it's a type of chard. All very confusing.
Both of these greens can be used as you would use spinach leaves: sautéed, steamed, in curries or soups... I decided to chop everything up, throw it in a pan and sautée the medley with some garlic and butter. Et voila! That's half of dinner sorted.
If you try this at home (and I heartily recommend you do - it's super cheap, easy and nutritious), remember to give everything a good wash and wear gloves to handle the nettles. As with any foraging activity, you need to make sure you have positively identified any plant before using it, be mindful of how much you pick, and try only a little bit first to see a) whether you like it, and b) what effect it has on you. There's plenty of good foraging advice out there, so please do your own research if you're unsure. I'm just here to share my own forays with you - and hopefully inspire you to see what's growing around you with new eyes.
And if you're not convinced about using nettles as a spinach substitute after all - try using the leaves for tea! They also make an excellent liquid fertiliser, bunged in a bucket of water and left to steep for about a week or so. Make sure you keep a lid on it though, it's a pretty smelly affair!
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