Eating in season: Stinging Nettle Smoothies

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I’m dating a guy who loves to forage for food whenever he can. Yesterday he threw dandelion greens and roots into our mashed potato dish. The flavour was a little more bitter than I’m used to, but I still ate it. I ate it because I trust him, because I know it’s supposed to be good for me and because I’m kinda fascinated (although not very experienced) with eating free, wild food in season.

Today Chris made us stinging nettle smoothies. Stinging nettles are something we have a lot of at the farm (growing along fence lines mostly) and this is the time of year, when the leaves are young and tender, to harvest and eat them. (Apparently they produce gritty particles called cystoliths after they have flowered and gone to seed which irritate the urinary tract, so don’t try to consume them when they’ve reached that stage).

Stinging nettles are supposedly very healthy. They are full of vitamins A, C, iron, potassium, manganese and calcium. I’d heard of stining nettle soup, tea and even beer before, but it wasn’t until I met Chris that I started adding them to my diet.

I was a little wary at first. After all, they are stinging nettles. Aren’t all the stingers going to irritate my throat and the inside of my mouth like they do my hands when I’m trying to weed them out of the garden? Apparently not…as long as you prepare them properly. A little internet research just informed me that boiling the leaves in water removes or softens the stingers, but Chris just massages and pounds the fresh leaves on a cutting board and that softens the stingers enough to eat them.

Over the past month, Chris has added stinging nettle leaves to mashed potatoes (soooo yummy!) and today we had the smoothies. The great thing about smoothies is that you can experiment with flavors and textures by throwing in whatever fresh fruits, veggies and herbs that you have lying around the kitchen (or growing up through the pavement cracks ;). I’ve been making fruit breakfast smoothies for years, but only recenly started adding vegetables to the mix (tip: kale and berries go great together!). Knowing that the veggie-heavy ones are even healthier than fruit-only smoothies made me open-minded and intrigued enough to try Chris’ stinging nettle smoothie out today. Verdict: really, really refreshing and tasty!

Here are the ingredients that Chris used, but if you want to try it yourself, feel free to experiment with whatever you have in your fridge and cupboards:

Our ‘First-Try’ Stinging Nettle Smoothie Recipe

  • stinging nettles
  • broccoli stems
  • kale
  • cilantro
  • apple
  • banana
  • unflavored protein powder 

Like I said, now’s the time of year to harvest young stinging nettle leaves, so if you have them crowding out your garden beds or have spotted them on the side of the road (in places that don’t get sprayed with pesticides), I totally recommend harvesting some and trying them out. There are oodles of different kinds of recipes online to get you started (I want to try this Stinging Nettle Pesto next!), so get out, get foraging, and enjoy!

How to tell when your seedlings need more nutrients

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Photo: Radish seedlings ready for transplanting

We hosted a local gardening class at the farm this past weekend that discussed seedling health, transplanting tips and the use of hotbeds to extend the growing season. Something I learned that I found really fascinating and helpful was this:

Seeds hold enough nutrients within themselves to fully support their own growth until they’ve formed their first true leaf. 

Amazing! I’d had no idea of the extent of nutrients living within a seed and understanding this means that I now know when to transplant seedlings into nutrient rich soil (or add natural fertilizers to the sterile potting soil they’re already in). SOOO helpful since up until now the only indicators I was relying on to inform my transplanting decisions were seedling size or the timing listed on planting charts.

If this information is new to you too, you may also wonder what the first TRUE leaf of a seedling is – since that’s the signifier that tells us when seedlings have used up their inner nutrients and need external help to continue growing. Contrary to how it may sound, the first true leaf isn’t the first leaf that appears when your seedling sprouts. That (or those, as there are often two) are called cotyledons. Cotyledons are part of the seed embryo and they are the first leaves to appear on a seedling. The first TRUE leaf however, is the first leaf that grows after the cotyledons have formed.

Take a look at the photo above. It’s a shot of some radish seedlings that we transplanted in class. Notice how the seedlings each have two round leaves. These leaves are the cotyledons of the radish seeds. Since there are two in this case, they are referred to as ‘dicots’ (plants with a single cotyledon are ‘monocots’). These first leaves on seedlings often look the same on many different plant varieties, but the first TRUE leaf holds the visual characteristics appropriate to its own specific plant variety (see photo of some first true radish leaves growing up between the cotyledons below).

Radish

Photo credit. 

Now that I know this, I feel like I’m able to observe my little seedlings with new eyes and give them the attention and care that they need. So thankful for spring and all the amazing things we get to learn as we nurture and watch our seedlings grow into beautiful life-giving plants.

Timing is Everything: When to Plant on the West Coast

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I’m impatient. I want to plant everything now and be able to harvest everything…yesterday. When oh when will I be running outside to eat my own fresh veggies again? Winter around here feels like it lasts FOREVER sometimes. I know this week marks the official start to spring, but seriously, that hail storm this morning did not feel spring-ish to me…

So, since I only have a couple food growing seasons under my belt and because I need something to dampen my impatience, I’ve been spending a lot of time researching information on when exactly I should plant things and, consequently, when I’ll be able to eat the grown products (obviously). For my research, I’m relying heavily on the advice printed on seed packets and on helpful websites. In the process, I’ve become very thankful for the planting charts that are put out by West Coast Seeds, one of our favorite seed suppliers.

I recently recommended the charts to a friend who’s starting her first veggie garden this year so I thought I’d post them up on this blog for others to use as resources as well. The charts are available in the West Coast Seeds Catalogue, but you can also find them electronically on their website. Find the Vegetable Planting Chart here and the Herbs and Flower Chart here (shown in image above). 

The charts have been designed with BC West Coast gardeners in mind. If you live in other regions of the world, you’ll want to find a guide that’s more suitable to your climate and agricultural zone. However, for those of us living in this part of the world, according to these charts, we should be getting outside right now and direct seeding argula, broad beans, carrots, kale, parsnips, peas, and more in our garden beds. Hail be damned (although sunshine really would be appreciated), there are seeds to plant! Happy planting!