Harvested Lemon Balm : And Got Stung

in #homesteading6 years ago

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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.
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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.
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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⬇️
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This is during and after⬇️
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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.

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I found it was easier to to stack the leafs, fold them in half, then cut them.

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We ended up with three quart jars 😊
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I plan on making creams and balms with the oil.


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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.