We’ve been itchin’ to make some nettle tea! Spring is here and they’ve started pushing up all along the roads and paths. So last weekend we got Leif on his bike and Io in the backpack and walked along a bike trail to collect them. Leif helped cut them down (with gloves of course) and we stuffed them into a garbage bag.

At home, you put them all in a large garbage can (with a spigot on the bottom), cover them with water and…wait. They rot.

Oh yeah, if your wondering, this tea isn’t for drinking. Oh no. In fact, if you could get this nasty brew down it would be a Guinness book world record for most disgusting thing ever consumed. It’s FOUL. Gasses form, fermentation bubbles, and the smell is essentially putrid.

So why? You could read this, or I could I’ll give you the short version. The tea is an amazing liquid fertilizer and plant tonic – we’ll use it to spray on the kitchen garden this year. I’ve got all sorts of experiments to run, one rumor is that this stuff works as an herbicide when it’s not diluted. We will see!

Check back for pictures of the final brew. It’s bound to be nasty.

Step 1: Find Nettles.

Step 2: Cut & Collect

Step 3: Get them home.

Put a spigot in the bottom of a trash can so you can drain out the tea after fermentation.

Put in the nettles, cover with water, and let sit for a couple of weeks. It’s a little temperature dependent (the warmer the faster it brews), but I think ours should be ready by April. It’s already steeping nicely.