Early each spring, our yard becomes covered with small, fuzzy, green plants. They poke up from the surrounding groundcover and put on tiny purple blooms. The early pollinators love these miniscule flowers, and small children love to pick the little stalks.
For some reason, last year was different. It's not that I hadn't seen the plants before. They had been there every year. Last year I had changed. We have become much more intentional with our acre-and-a-half "homestead" - learning about food forests and permaculture, adding fruit trees, planning our own herb beds, getting chickens, encouraging pollinators. Now I was curious about what exactly that little green plant was. A quick image search identified it - Lamium purpureum, or Purple Dead Nettle (also called Red deadnettle). And that's when I fell down the rabbit hole.
This plant that was growing so profusely across our yard was not just one of the first signs of spring and and early pollinator food. It turns out that it's also useful for people. While it's not one of the powerhouses of the herbal world, it was my gateway to herbalism. It's edible as a green (but just tastes like grass to me), and can be steeped in a tea or tisane. But it can also be infused into oil and used to help dry, chapped skin! And who's skin doesn't need a boost of moisturizing in late winter??!
Since we don't use any kind of pesticides or herbicides in our yard, I picked a bunch of the aerial parts (the stems with leaves and flowers) and put them in the dehydrator. Then I learned how to infuse them into oil. From there I made my first salves and hand creams and decided I needed to learn so much more about the amazing plants right outside my door!
I'm now studying herbalism, and have been developing the core products for Hedgehog Botanicals over the past year. The L. purpureum that I wildcrafted is a key ingredient in the Intensive Herbal Hand Cream and every time I use it I'm reminded how amazing it is that such a tiny, humble plant grows right outside my own front door!