One of my biggest struggles with my nettle project is sourcing the actual nettle. If I had a larger property, I would definitely plant a patch somewhere and nurture it to growth, harvesting it in the spring for its supple leaves and in the fall for its fiber bearing properties. However, the house I'm in is situated in a city on what is basically an envelope sized parcel of land, and while I would find it lovely (and chaotic) for nettle to spread into neighboring yards, I'm sure my neighbors would not be pleased. Although they don't seem to care about their ground ivy and dandelions straying into mine, I will keep to the moral high-ground. I'll stick to growing my nettle at home in a pot inside.
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| My little nettle plant, in a pot, kept inside. |
What does this mean for the nettle project? While I can't plant it where I'm at, thankfully I know people like my mother, who is happy to have something green growing in her yard. She bought a house in Maine that came with an eleven by twenty foot putting green that got hit with a lawn mower a couple of times. It was an eyesore that was not being used except by ants and, in areas where the fake grass carpet was pulled up, by the neighborhood cats (a la litter box). I politely asked her if she would allow me to grow nettle in this spot for a year (maybe two). In trade, I would clean up the putting green and put grass down after the nettle was finished growing. One of the things I learned about nettle recently is that it helps to develop the humus in the soil, with the humus being the dark organic matter at the top of the soil level.
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| Ye olde putting green, as found at my mother's house. |
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| Putting green removed, even without grass this spot was improved. |
As well as purchasing the roots from Etsy, I also planted seeds I have gotten from Fedco Seeds (a fantastic Maine seed company). Unfortunately, I ended up dropping the tray of seeds almost directly after planting them and figured nothing would come up. The tray was put outside on the deck and mostly forgotten about.
To my surprise, the seeds actually sprouted! But then I did a silly thing, thinking it was going to rain when I left for a few days. It did not rain and a lot of the seedlings in the tray dried out. I have hope that things will rebound.
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| The nettle planted; they will have to do battle with the ants. |
When I was back in Maine, I prepped the site and roughly gauged where I wanted to plant my 20 bare root plants. It is very symmetrical (not) and well thought out (also not). I'm debating on getting some more bare root plants from the same people to fill it in a bit more, but I also do not want to crowd the spot, knowing that the nettle will spread.
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| Growth within a couple of days. |
It was amazing to see how well some of the plants did within 24 hours of planting, and even more so within two days. I am not currently at my mother's house to monitor, but I'm excited to see the progress the plants will make this spring. From here on out, unless I add more plants to the plot, it will be a wait-and-see game until this fall.
I have read that deer will leave nettle alone, however the deer prints near the garden and the lack of the rooted plants existing, all prove this wrong. At least for the little plants. At the time of this post, only three of the 20 plants have actual leaves. The rest have not made much progress; it is possible that this is due to the large amount of rainfall Maine has had, the cold, me planting too early in the year, waiting too long to plant the nettle, or the ants. I will try again. And again, until I finally have access to a solid source of nettle.
Goals for this Plot:
1. Collect nettle that will be used in creating fiber for spinning.
2. Video of me collecting nettle in garb for use in various A&S displays.
3. Disappear the DTV satellite dish.
4. Nettle soup?
