A weed to cure hayfever

This spring on Banks Peninsula we have had wet and cold then warm and dry days alternating in groups for the past three months. It has been great for grass growth, and hence grass pollen, which is a well-known trigger of hay fever.

A cup of hayfever relief, with its ingredients

On November 18 I started showing the symptoms – sneezing, runny nose and eyes, tickly throat, feeling stuffed up in the head. I endured it for a week until I finally had the sense to consult my copy of James Wong's Grow Your Own Drugs, to see what he recommended by way of herbal help. I was amazed to discover that the answer was a simple tea made of the common stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) and German camomile, sweetened with local honey. I did not have any camomile (memo to self – sow some soon!) but there were plenty of nettles 

around (they liked the weather too), and I had some local multi-flora honey in the cupboard. (The idea with using local honey is that it contains the local flower pollens that are triggering the allergic reaction when being breathed in, and may help create some immunity to them.)

It was easy to snip around 3 tablespoons of fresh nettle leaves and stalks into a 3 cup tea pot, pour boiling water over, leave it to brew for 5 minutes, strain off the liquid, and drink 1 cup sweetened with 1 teaspoon of local honey. After drinking 4 cups at roughly 3 hour intervals I was feeling about 60% better when I went to bed that night. I woke the next day feeling 80% better. I had another 4 cups that day, and the hay fever went and has not returned in the past week, despite the grass still growing strongly and plenty of other plants shedding pollen around here.

If it does, I will definitely be brewing nettle tea again. What's not to like about a simple, effective remedy that costs nothing and uses up an annoying weed?