Plant · P-357

Nettle Spinach

Urtica urens

Nettle Spinach is a fast-growing annual nettle that germinates with the fall rains, grows through winter, and finishes flowering and seeding before summer heat arrives - sown in spring instead, it just bolts and gives nothing. Young leaves cook into an excellent spinach substitute, and the plant can also be fermented into a potent liquid fertilizer or added to a compost pile as an activator, reaching harvest size in as little as five weeks. The sting is entirely in the handling, not the eating - cooking or drying destroys it completely, so gloves are the only real precaution needed for picking.