Around the time the blossom falls, when the nettle develops an upright spiky habit with dark stems rather than a pale green open and welcoming one, then you know that nettle harvesting for the dinner table is over and it's time to protect patches for hosting butterfly larvae and wait for the long stems to grow to make string for your nettle shirts. (This photo should have been our March blog but we were too busy harvesting nettles).

That just means moving house to the other side of the paddock where they have become grateful recipients of armfuls of cooch grass and integral to the business of creating compost. If you come to Market Day on 6th May or 3rd June or to Open Farm Sunday on 11th June you can pay them a visit!