Purple Dead Nettle with Colleen Codekas

Herbs with Rosalee

Purple dead nettle is an alluring weed that often grabs our attention in the spring. It can spring up in lawns and disturbed places, forming a thick mat of its bee-enticing flowers.

Despite all the intrigue surrounding purple dead nettle, there’s so little information about it! I'm so excited to talk with Colleen Codekas about purple dead nettle (Lamium purpureum) because she has lots of experience with this plant as a forager and herbal medicine maker. You’ll also receive access to Colleen’s recipe for herbal honey infused with purple dead nettle, which could serve as a tasty way to get some relief from seasonal allergies!

If you don’t already know Colleen, you’re about to find out that she is passionate about healthy living through natural food and herbal medicine! She lives with her family of three in Vermont where living close to nature is easy and a way of life. In her off-time, she likes to go foraging for wild edible and medicinal plants and mushrooms, cook delicious food, make mead, grow a ridiculous amount of edible and medicinal plants, and make herbal medicine. She is the author of the traditionally published book Healing Herbal Infusions, and four ebooks: Wildcrafting Weeds, Healing Kitchen Herbs, Simple Mead Making, and The Backyard Forest Garden.

► ► ► Colleen has also created an online foraging course, gather + root, which you can learn more about at: https://bit.ly/3pVJnIt (Disclosure: This is an affiliate link. By using it, you help support this channel. Thanks!)

Listen in for:

► Herbs that combine well with purple dead nettle in pesto

► Is fresh or dried purple dead nettle best for infusing herbal honey?

► Are there any purple dead nettle look-alikes to be aware of?

Here is one of my favorite takeaways from our conversation:

“Things would start growing in our yard that were like weeds, most people would think of as weeds. I was just so interested. Like, what is this plant? What is that plant? Almost every single one was something that was used either for herbalism purposes or for food or both.”

Colleen and I have known each other online for a long time and it was really fun to have a face-to-face visit with her and to share our conversation with you!

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Get full show notes including a transcript of this episode at: herbswithrosaleepodcast.com.

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On the podcast, we explore the many ways plants heal, as food, as medicine, and through nature connection. Each week, I focus on a single seasonal plant and share trusted herbal knowledge so that you can get the best results when using herbs for your health.

Learn more about Herbs with Rosalee at herbswithrosalee.com.

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Rosalee is an herbalist and author of the bestselling book Alchemy of Herbs: Transform Everyday Ingredients Into Foods & Remedies That Heal and co-author of the bestselling book Wild Remedies: How to Forage Healing Foods and Craft Your Own Herbal Medicine. She's a registered herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and teaches many popular online courses. Read about how Rosalee went from having a terminal illness to being a bestselling author in her full story here.