I couldn’t find anyone commercially growing nettles, but
most market gardeners will just leave a patch to supply
individual requests. Allsun Farm’s
Joyce Wilkie and Michael Plane who supply nettles to
Sage, explained
that nettles love rich soil, full of organic matter and are
a regular invader in between plantings of their organic
vegetable crops. Constant weeding is needed to remove them,
and that makes the occasional commercial sale to a
nettle-aware chef a bonus.
If you choose to pick them wild,
(and many people do if they're into wild harvesting
and frugal living), nettles grow
both in sun and in shaded areas.
Creek and river banks are classic spots. They love
soil that
has high nitrogen content so you'll find them in well
manured cow paddocks. They grow all year round,
flowering in spring and dropping seeds in summer, and
obviously growing better when there’s water. Avoid
the dark green leaves it’s the softer
pale green leaves at the top that you want
to pick.
The
nettle's
Latin name
Urtica
comes from the word, "uro," which means "I
burn." And that burning pain is almost a fool proof method of telling it’s a nettle. Distinguishing
sub varieties is harder. If you can’t buy from a green
grocer and are harvesting wild ones, you are more likely to
find Urtica urens
- the small nettle and
Urtica diocia - the tall nettle, which has longer leaves
and more spikes on the stalks.
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Above: Joyce at Allsun Farm uses a salad-green cutter, perfect for a
hands-free nettle harvest. A serrated cutting edge is moved
from side to side and the greens fall into the canvas bin.
(Allsun sell and can source high quality garden implements
such as the salad harvester).
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