Nettle tincture for hives - a success story.

Here's a novel use for nettle tincture, brought to us by a reader. This is good stuff, and I'm glad she's sharing. We've lost so much our traditional knowledge about the uses of these handy plants that we almost have to start from scratch (oops, no pun intended) to figure these things out on our own, and share what we learn.

Here's what Linda has learned, in her own words:

A 2fer post - Oats galore and garbling the usnea

Just over a week ago we went for one of those evening drives, when the light is all golden on the fields and shadows play in the forests. Down our favourite back road on Calumet Island we came across a field of oats, still green, but cut down that day. The smell was indescribably beautiful, especially combined with all the wildflowers of the ditches and the dew just coming on.

As there is no gate, I ventured into the field and discovered, to my delight, that the all around the edges of the field, where weeds meet crop, the farmer had left oats standing. Score! I love oatstraw infusions, so I gathered an armload and brought them home. I had no knife - silly me - but they come up by the roots very easily.