Harvested Lemon Balm : And Got Stung
I started my lemon balm 7 months ago in my indoor greenhouse. I planted them in eggshells. I transplanted them two months later.
Well I went in to check my green house bare foot. I was walking around my table and something zapped me!
I thought it was a plant so I touched it and it zapped me again!
So I grabbed some gloves and pulled it.
I took it to my goats to see if they would eat it, I heard they would eat such things.
I know Sterlings face is gross 🤢
My goat said hell NO! Apple was pretty upset that I gave her it, she was making faces for a long while after she tried it. 🙁
So I took it to the burn barrel and headed back to the green house to find more, and I did.😕
I got better pictures too.
After killing the plant I double and triple checked the green house. It looks okay and safe for bare feet again.
So we started to prune the lemon balm plant.
This is before we pruned⬇️
This is during and after⬇️
We got two gallon baggies full!
Now comes the tedious part, trimming and chopping.
I originally started the process at home, then realized we didn’t have enough olive oil. So I was cutting in the car while the hubby drove to the store.
I found it was easier to to stack the leafs, fold them in half, then cut them.
We ended up with three quart jars 😊
I plan on making creams and balms with the oil.
So what was the bad plant?
I've never thought of making oil from it. I've got it year round on my porch - up close to the house it will survive the winter. When you have it year round you don't think of things to do with it :)
I think it was stinging nettle: https://g.co/kgs/Wc8p3i
It looked simular to these pictures. ⬆️
We have a different strain of nettle also, hemp nettle. It doesn’t sting most of the time and the goats eat it.
It certainly looks like stinging nettle.
Yep, I think you got stung by the stinging nettle. to bad you burnt it. It is a great compost accelerator and also great for making compost tea with to feed your plants. I have stinging nettle growing all over my garden and I've come to love it and actually harvest loads of it for soups and I've even made smoothies out of them. - they lose their sting when mashed up. If you have any of the herb plantain around you can take a leaf of that, mash it up and rub the juice of it where you got stung and it will take the sting away. I use it all the time.
Nice harvest. Let me know how your creams and balms turn out. I imagine they would have a lovely lemony sent. What benefits do you get from putting the lemon balm into your creams? I usually use it for tea.