Prickly nettles made pliant for the pot

Sandy, Bedfordshire Tiny spears pierce my trousers and the skin of my knee, releasing toxins that tingle with fiery heat

Under a hawthorn hedge and all along the bank grows one of Britain's most feared and reviled plants. I kneel down before it and feel its power. Its hairs, just a few millimetres long and looking like icicle spears, have pierced both my trousers and the skin of my knee, releasing toxins that tingle with fiery heat.

Even so, I reach out to grasp one of these plants between thumb and forefinger. I have come not to curse nettles, but to pick them, for their stinging hairs have no answer to gardening gloves, and their ferocious leaves can be tamed in a saucepan.