The following plants will be offered for sale in the online shop tomorrow at 5pm or shortly afterwards. Please only order through the shop.

Wild rocket - olive leaved

Bocking 14 Comfrey root and shoot cuttings

Stingless nettle

Wild strawberry plantlets - ground-cover

Iberian comfrey plantlets- ground-cover

The nettles are getting big enough to pick locally. A top and very nutritious perennial vegetable, but so common it is easily overlooked. It isn't usually too difficult to find a place to forage for nettles even in very urban areas (although I learnt recently that there are some areas in northern Scotland where you'd be lucky to find them). All the same it can be convenient to grow a patch of nettles in the corner of the garden and it will also attract the butterflies and moths that rely on nettle as the food plant for their caterpillars: peacock, red admiral and comma butterflies and burnished brass, mother-of-pearl, small magpie and spectacle moths. Last year I planted stingless nettle (a species with far fewer stings, usually classified as a different species to the common nettle). I'm not sure how many caterpillars feast on this one - but will try to remember to examine it at intervals during the spring and summer.



The most recent post on the blog is about nettle dumplings.