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Grown organically at KoruKai Herb Farm, New Zealand. Free of pesticides, herbicides and other agrochemicals.

Sorrel is a perennial leaf vegetable with a beautiful lemony, sour flavour. It is very easy to grow and maintain and provides you with an abundance of leaves for 10 -12 months of the year (depending on the climate). At KoruKai the plant goes dormant over winter and this is the best time for us to dig it up, divide it and send you some for your own garden.




Above: Mid spring and the sorrel is underway at KoruKai Herb Farm.

Please note that we will send you a dormant plant with no or little leaves like in the image below.


Growing instructions

Sorrel is a very easy to grow and is not frost tender. It is a very low maintenance plant. Simply find a suitable sunny spot in your garden. Work through some compost and bury the clump just below the surface. If it has some little leaves bury it to where my thumb is in the image above. Mulch heavily with straw around the plant and lightly over the crown. Mark the spot and water well.
Harvest lightly over the spring period to let the plant take roots and harvest more as it grows bigger over summer. Pinch out any flower stalks when they emerge in spring/early summer. Water well throughout the first summer. A deep soak once a week is much better for the deep tap root than a light water every day.
Remove the seed stalks in summer. Excess leaves and seed stalks can be fed to cows and chickens. They love it as much as our kids do.
Cutting back the seed stalks promotes new leaf growth. Sorrel is frost and drought hardy but the leaves can become tough if not watered during dry summers. A decent layer of mulch prevents this. It prefers full sun but will tolerate part shade. It will flourish best in deep nutritious soils with compost worked through, but will handle clay or even sandy soils. Its only requirement is not to let its deep taproot dry out.


Cooking
We nibble on the leaves as we walk past it in the garden. The leaves shredded with lettuce bring a salad to life and a nettle and sorrel soup is tasty and invigorating in spring. It goes well with eggs but perhaps the best use is cooked like spinach in a little butter and mixed with black pepper and crème fraiche to make a sauce to serve with salmon – exquisite.

Caution: Plants can contain quite high levels of oxalic acid, which is what gives the leaves of many members of this genus an acid-lemon flavour. Perfectly alright in small quantities, the leaves should not be eaten in large amounts

Grade 
Catherine Lupton 13/10/2022

Dee-licious

Loving eating my tangy sorrel every day. Added to salads or just on its own - my new favourite green food.

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M Carter 12/10/2022

Good to add to salads

We used to have sorrel in salads when I was growing up and I liked its distinctive taste. The root with arrived from Korukai in good order and the sorrel is thriving with the spring sun and rain.

Grade 
Nicolette 12/10/2022

Little green gem

I received my little cuttings, wrapped carefully in damp newspaper but they did look sad and bewildered. I planted them carefully, straight away according to the instructions and how they've grown! I most definitely recommend Korukai for your plants. They are obviously raised with love and are strong, beautiful souls.

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