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| Stinging nettle - the culprit! |
While pulling up the finished snow pea vines, I accidentally brushed my hand against a nettle plant. I knew the plant was there, but forgot to remind myself! And did it hurt! Having been taught from an early age that the dock plant always grew near nettles and that the dock leaf rubbed on the sting would neutralize it, I immediately started hunting through the garden for some dock plants.
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| Young weed growing in the garden |
Grabbing what I thought was a young dock plant, I rubbed it vigorously over the sting and got almost instant relief. Thinking about it afterwards, I thought, "That wasn't a dock plant - it was plantain!" So why did it relive the sting?
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| Dock plant |
Run to the Internet! And there I discovered that perhaps there's nothing in the old wives' tale! Rubbing the leaf of just about any plant will do the same thing. The plantain leaf was cool and moist - that bed having just been watered. The coolness and moisture from the leaf may have diluted the stinging agent in the nettles and rubbing may have spread it further. Whatever! It worked, which is a good thing! Nettles and dock usually grow in moist areas and other than my raised beds, there are no moist areas in my garden these days. I certainly wasn't going to run down to the irrigation pond to find some true dock!
Maybe next time I discover a nettle plant in my garden, I'll remove it so that I don't have to test any more old wives' tales.
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