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Growing Sorrel
Growing Sorrel Sorrel makes an excellent soup and sauce. It can be used as watercress and/or spinach in sauce recipes. It is slightly sour (lemony sour) and has the reputation of being a diuretic. You start off by buying a plant. It's a perennial and will grow year after year, increasing in size as it goes. It grows best in light soil and full sun although it will tolerate some shade - it needs to be sheltered. It grows to about 2 feet high during the season. The flowers are reddish green and appear May to July. Cut back the flowers to prevent the plant going to seed and becoming tough. You can increase your stock by dividing the roots in spring or autumn - plant these about 15 inches apart. Add a few leaves to a salad - the leaves can be a little bitter for some tastes, so a few leaves added to a green herby salad are best. Use it in sauce (recipe here Sorrel Sauce) or soup. Dry the leaves for out of season use - Preserving Herbs gives instructions for microwave and traditional drying. Rescue Remedy If you're lucky enough to have inherited a patch of sorrel but it's weed infested, then treat it like any perennial. Dig up the clumps in spring or autumn. Carefully tease out the weeds from the roots and divide the roots into pieces. Prepare a bed for the plants, by digging over and making sure that the soil is fine and weed free. Plant the individual pieces about 15 inches apart and give them a good drink of water. Keep weed free and you should be rewarded with a very fine crop.
For an explanation of gardening terms that you might not understand, please check out the Growers Dictionary section. I found that I was either skimping on explanations or giving too much information on the individual pages so I have posted all relevant terms in one section - if there's anything you need to know, please drop me an email.
Growing Sorrel - to Growing Herbs
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