They say here in Clare: ” when gorse doesn’t bloom kissing goes out of fashion”
There is ALWAYS a gorse in bloom.
Love the coconut like smell. You can eat them and the flowers seem to make a nice wine. Haven’t tried that.
nitrogen fixer, great placenta plant
It was rolled and than given to the cows as winter fodder.
good winter pollen for honeybees
It is poisonous. Since every plant carries different bacteria and fungi, I think they might be good to have around for the general immune system of the food forest.
I had the first nettles. The first shoots are the sweetest. I always pick the top 4 leaves. There is sooo much uses for nettle and what’s good for.
One can dye with nettles, yellow roots, green leaves, and it is host to over 40 insects including butterflies and moths.
When you want to get rid of nettles mulch heavily. The next year the roots moved up and they are much easier to pull.
Fertilizer, chop and drop as its woody, fibre (link to utube video), paper, and of course as spinach, soup, with egg, tea, as well hair tonic and getting used to insect bites. As I handle them a lot making fibre I got immune to ant, bee, midget and wasp stings. Even horsefly stings don’t bother me much anymore.
Regulates milk supply, arthritis , spring clean. People wrote books just about the nettle.
winter salad
sowing themselves out, With some little help of me, planting them out to where they would do.
Sorrel you recognize at those pointy bits where the leave is attached to the stem and of course it’s lemony taste. Vit. C source in winter, curdles milk
Jack in the hedge an other garlic tasting plant. My experiments have shown that it does well where nettles grow and reduces the nettle spread.
She is flowering for the first time. Of course i had to try a leave. New flower bitter taste. Very interesting and for me well palatable, certainly with other salad stuff. Sure one can make jam with it too.