Now available in print - order your copy today!
A COMPLETE FORAGING GUIDE
Everything you need to know
about stinging nettles
From the hedgerow to the kitchen, the medicine cabinet to the garden -
one remarkable plant, fully explored.
By Gavin Ireland - Foraging and Bushcraft Instructor
The practical, authoritative guide to Britain's most overlooked plant
THE PLANT YOU WALKED PAST THIS MORNING
You already know nettles, but do you really
know what they can do?
Most people have two experiences of stinging nettles: brushing against them, and then looking for a dock leaf. That's where the relationship ends.
But nettles have fed people through harsh winters, clothed soldiers, supported traditional medicine for centuries, and quietly underpinned ecosystems that butterflies, birds, and insects depend on. They're one of the most nutritious, versatile, and freely available plants in Britain β and almost everyone ignores them.
This book changes that.
Once you start to see nettles clearly, you cannot unsee them.
They stop being a weed and start being a resource.
Written by a professional foraging instructor with years of hands-on field experience, this guide is practical from the first page. No waffle, no folklore filler. Just clear, usable knowledge about a plant that deserves far more credit than it gets.
IS THIS BOOK FOR YOU?
This book is for anyone who...
Is new to foraging
Nettles are the perfect starting point. Abundant, distinctive, and impossible to confuse once you know what to look for.
Is interested in herbal medicine
A balanced, evidence-based look at what nettles can and cannot do, grounded in both tradition and modern research.
Cares about wildlife and ecology
Nettles are a keystone species for UK wildlife. Understanding them means understanding the wider ecosystem.
Wants to cook with wild food
Soup, pasta, crisps, cordial, beer;
nettles are one of the most versatile wild ingredients in the British kitchen.
Loves bushcraft and craft skills
Cordage, fibre, dye, fire lighting; nettles have been a practical material for thousands of years.
Grows their own food
Fertiliser, compost activator, pest support β nettles are one of the most useful plants you can have in a productive garden.
INSIDE THE BOOK
Eleven chapters. One extraordinary plant.
Introduction
Scope, approach, how to use this book
History and Folklore
From Bronze Age fibre to wartime textiles
Botany, Ecology and Identification
Growth cycles, habitat clues, lookalikes
Foraging and
Harvesting
Where, when, how; with a full checklist
Processing and Preservation
Blanching, drying, freezing, powdering
Food and Drink
Recipes, flavour pairing, drinks and cocktails
Medicine
Traditional use, evidence tiers, safe preparations
Practical and Craft Uses
Cordage, fibre, dye, fire lighting
Wildlife and Ecology
Butterflies, birds, insects, keystone species
Gardening and Cultivation
Liquid feed, compost, managing a patch
The Future of Nettles
Food systems, sustainability, what's coming
WHY THIS BOOK IS DIFFERENT
Practical, honest, and built on real field experience
Full identification guidance β including a side-by-side lookalike comparison so you harvest with total confidence.
A complete foraging checklist β run through it before every harvest. Clear, visual, and designed for real fieldwork.
Processing fundamentals β most foraging books skip this. Blanching, drying, freezing, powdering: the techniques that turn a glut into year-round supply.
A "build your own dish" framework β understand the flavour logic so you can improvise, not just follow recipes.
Evidence-tiered medicine section β clear on what is well supported, what is promising, and what is purely traditional. Rare in a plant book.
Step-by-step cordage guide β with visuals. A skill you can genuinely learn and use from the page.
Full-colour illustrations, graphics and photographs β designed to be as useful in the field as they are at the kitchen table.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Written by someone who forages for a living
Gavin Ireland
Foraging & Bushcraft Instructor β Found Food & Forage Box
Gavin is a professional foraging and bushcraft instructor, and the owner of two businesses built around connecting people with wild food. Through Forage Box, he runs foraging workshops across the UK with a network of experienced tutors. Through Found Food, he teaches thousands of students how to identify, harvest, and use wild plants through courses, books, and membership resources.
This isn't a book written from a desk. Everything in it has been taught in the field, tested in the kitchen, and refined through years of workshops and one-to-one instruction.
WHAT READERS SAY
From people who've been on the workshops
I came away from Gavin's workshop seeing the countryside completely differently. This book captures that same feeling; you'll never look at a nettle patch the same way again.
Workshop attendee, Wales
The medicine section alone is worth the price. It doesn't oversell, it doesn't dismiss β it just tells you what we actually know. That's harder to find than it sounds.
Workshop attendee, Herefordshire
Clear, practical, and genuinely enjoyable to read. I've tried a dozen foraging books and this is the one that actually made me go outside and do something.
Found Food student
GET YOUR COPY
Order the print edition
A practical, beautifully produced guide you'll reach for again and again β in the kitchen, in the garden, and out in the field.
Printed book
Full colour
UK Delivery
Β£17.99
UK Delivery Β£4.99
Secure checkout Β· Dispatched from the UK Β· Questions? Get in touch
Want to go further?
Gavin runs foraging workshops across the UK through Forage Box, and offers online courses and resources through Found Food.
Still not sure?
Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you a free printable PDF of the Stinging Nettles Foraging Checklist.