Who and what is Singing Nettles?

Who am I 

Hello and welcome to my corner of the internet. My name is Gabby and I’m a community herbalist and plant person based in and around Stratford, ON Canada. Stratford, and the farm where I grow herbs, is located on treaty land that was shared between the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe and other Indigenous nations (more on this further on in the post).  I have studied clinical therapeutic western herbalism, but am not a clinical herbalist. 

I have always loved plants, but have struggled to find a way to work with them that is financially sustainable and personally fulfilling. I have worked as an environmental/sustainability organizer, as a landscape gardener in gorgeous and world famous gardens, as a supplements/health and beauty consultant in a health food store, briefly as a labourer in a cannabis factory, and making herbal and natural skincare products, which is my current day job. Come see me at Apt. 6 Apothecary in Stratford ON. 

Many herbalists you talk to will have what I call an “origin story” of illness and struggle that eventually led them to the plants, and through working with the plants, eventually to a place of stability and better health. This experience compels many of us to share the plants with others. I have a similar origin story. 

My origin story is one of extreme ups and extreme downs, and is deeply personal. When I went away to university, I went through two years of what I can now recognize as a manic episode, punctuated by extreme depressive episodes. After two years of little sleep, a non-stop work/school/activism/social schedule, my immune system effectively collapsed. For several years, I dealt with frequent allergy attacks of hay fever-like symptoms. Every little thing irritated my immune system, and I was almost always sick. On top of this, the depression, with periods of hypomania, continued and intensified. 

One of the first herbs I developed a relationship with during this time was stinging nettles (Urtica dioica). A friend and mentor prescribed me a daily nourishing infusion (basically a really strong tea) of nettles and oatstraw. Nettles provided me with many vitamins and minerals (iron, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and more) to help build my system back up, as well as treating my allergies and helping calm my immune system. I still take a daily nourishing infusion of nettles and usually oatstraw, and then add other herbs depending on the day. My allergies are largely under control and have been for years now. 

 Stinging nettles were one of my first herbal allies, and remain one of my most trusted plant friends to this day. It’s the main reason I decided to name my business Singing Nettles (don’t ask where the “singing” came from, not all creative decisions need to make complete and logical sense). 

The only other part of my origin story I’ll share is that I was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and I take a cocktail of daily psychiatric medication, along with my daily nourishing infusions, to keep me (mostly) stable. My mental illness is not the only thing that defines me, of course, but it impacts every single area of my life, and like any other chronic illness, I will probably be dealing with it forever.  Nettles have been a steadying and healing presence in my life, an anchor and part of a routine that frankly, has helped keep me alive. 

What I hope to offer 

So many other plants have been great allies and friends throughout my life, and I do want to share their magic with other people who need the plants. We as a society and as individuals, are sick and disconnected, from the land and from each other, and we need to find our way back to the plants. 

There is a hunger for it. People want to learn about the plants, they want to work with them, they want to heal themselves and their communities. Herbal medicine, in the West anyway, is undergoing something of a renaissance. Herbalists are everywhere! This is a good thing. We need more herbalists, clinical professionals, growers and medicine makers, and people using herbalism to help their families and communities. We need more plant people, we need more people working with the plants in responsible ways. 

In North America, we live in a colonial, capitalist system that has intentionally severed many people’s connections with their traditional plant medicine systems and with their land connections. Our society, our economy, our lives are built on continuous consumption and profit, regardless of the environmental and social costs. 

One of my biggest fears is herbalism becoming another extractive industry, where we thoughtlessly take and take from the plants, as we do in many other industries, as we have already done with many of the traditional and Indigenous medicinal plants of these lands, overharvesting and endangering them (ginseng and goldenseal come to mind). 

We need the plants, but many different Indigenous teachers have taught me that the plants need us too. They need us to plant them, to tend them, and to show them respect and reverence: the plants want us to be in community with them. 

We need many herbalists, but we also need many small-scale, localized herb farmers growing and working with the plants in their regions. This is what I am trying to do with Singing Nettles Herbs. I want to use small-scale and sustainable agricultural practices to grow high quality medicinal herbs and sell them to my local community, as well as offer environmentally conscious plant education.

Situating Myself and the Land where I Farm

I come from tremendous privilege. My background is Western European (England, Scotland, France), and I am tremendously lucky to be able to farm on a plot of land that has been in my mother’s family for over 100 years at this point. This piece of land was purchased by my great , great, great grandfather from a man named Alexander Robertson. Roberston purchased it from the Canada Company, a private land development company created to colonize parts of what was then called Upper Canada. Farming is in my bones, but so is colonialism. I have a historical connection with where I am farming, but it is just over 100 years at this point. The peoples who lived on these lands since time immemorial, the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe and others, are largely shut out from land ownership in this area. Without my family connection, I would not be able to farm here myself. There are difficult and important conversations about reconciliation and land back that need to happen, but the bare minimum is situating myself and the land where I am farming. 

If You Made it this Far 

Thank you for reading this origin story/blog. I hope to add more content to this page on a regular basis, but spring is almost here, and seeds and garden things are calling (at this point, they are screaming). I hope to set up a proper shop soon, and have more info about where you can buy herbs from me, but for now, please check out the events page to see upcoming workshops and events, and follow me on Instagram @snherbs