Grandma’s vegetable garden, in a village called Crangeni in the Muntenia region of Romania, runs downhill toward a wetland formed by the thinning stream of the Calmatui River. It’s flanked by two diamond hole wire fences, while the marsh is a natural boundary. Some minute rills that flow into the river form a small pond at the bottom of the garden plot. The fertile soil surrounding it is a perfect habitat for all kinds of mud-sucking perennial plants. There, stinging nettles thrive. They took over the marshes and spread upward over the garden grounds, following the wire fences’ unconventional borders, like voluntary sentinels, ready to fight and die for their realm. At least, this is what I imagined as a child when Grandma put a sock on my hand to teach me how to forage for them, tip by tip. The sock was supposed to protect my delicate skin against …