The preps you mention (except horsetail) belong to the six preps we use to put into compost piles before closing them up for winter. We use small quantities to bring inenergies from the air and earth, so they can't be compared with conventional fertilizers. I'm at a loss to ascribe any meaurable benefits to them; they are part of the whole biodynamic practice, which you need to study and experiment with as a whole before making up your own mind. My advice is to attend a lecture on biodynamic to get an inkling. If you don't accept the theory of homeopathic medicine, for example, you are unlikely to accept biodynamic gardening practice. Regards, Peter.

I have two stinging nettle plants but they aren't growing hardly at all. I guess I made the mistake of planting the well rooted cuttings in 3 gallon pots instead of 1 gallons to start. The tea is very sweet. Such a joy to drink it. I made the mistake of trying to eat the leaves after I made the tea. Big mistake. Nothing like stinging tongue. Thank God it only lasted a few minutes. I hope I will have some to share next year. I don't know how to make it grow any faster in pots.

hi all...sorry I'm just now getting back to this. Thanks for the input. Another question: is there an easy way to tell wood nettle (Laportea canadensiis) from U dioica? Are the stinging bristles present on the undersides of the leaves in stinging nettle also present in wood nettle? The way it's phrased in Audubon's makes it sound as though they are absent in Wood nettle.... The actual floodplain here gets scoured right down to the treeroots when the water gets up. In '83 when the big flood hit, we had 11 inches of rain in a little less than 36 hours, and there was about 8 feet of water from bluff to bluff. When the waters subside here after a flood, all leaf litter is completely gone. It seems unnatural to see a forest floor swept bare like that. In the spring the chaos begins: dogtooth violet, bloodroot, larkspur, dutchman's breeches, trout lily, virginia bluebells, a host of violets. The mayapples form their thickets. The jewelweed is sprouting. THere were the early bloomers-the pawpaws along the creek itself as well as the spicebush and the bladddernut bushes. THe morel seekers know the way to my place! I did indeed begin controlled something like 8 years back and watched the ginseng and goldenseal return. The solomon's seal and green dragon arums are knee high in places, and the jack-in-the-pulpit is doing well. And both cardinal flower and great blue lobelias are here. Granted , most of this commotion is located on the slightly higher ground, but a good deal of it is still right there on the flats. Why does it give way to such a monocultural summer?? The burning is extremely difficult and next to impossible to do in the bottoms...most of the dry leaf litter, as I mentioned, is carried away by floods and wedged in drifts around the bases of birch and oaks, so getting a fire to run is frustrating. Maybe one good year of breaking the cycle would show me what's waiting under all that stinging shade... Sam md mentioned too many deer...I have seen those situations before, almost parklike, with nothing in between the ground and higher first branch. We do have too many deer in our township, but so far we don't have a problem with overbrowsing like the urban areas do. Coyotes take their fill of fawns and hunters follow suit with the adults. I finally saw my first bobcat this spring so things are improving. Just seems like something is not quite right with a carpet of nettle.

I grow nettles in a tub, it's about 20cm high but it's mostly on top of the ground (not sure whether it makes much difference). In the ground next to it is a big mugwort bush whose roots choke out everything around it. They've been there for a few years now and they haven't disturbed each other yet; the tub is rooted to the ground now but no nettled outside of the tub. I've only had them for a few years but that's my experience so far.