Bloody Dock (Red-Veined Sorrel)

Sow seed directly into the ground in spring once the soil can be worked. Plants form a tightly packed basal rosette about a foot tall and spread steadily from there, so give them room. Bloody dock is a cool-season perennial that establishes its basal rosette in spring while soil is moist and temperatures are mild, which is also when the leaves are at their most tender and least bitter.

Fertilize once annually in spring as growth resumes. This plant is not a heavy feeder and needs nothing further through the season. Bloody dock is grown for a continuous flush of young leaves, and a single spring feeding as the rosette rebuilds carries it through the year without pushing the soft growth that invites rust and mildew.

Lift and divide established clumps by root division in early spring. This is the simplest way to make more plants and to keep an aging clump vigorous. The plant is a clump-forming perennial that spreads continuously, and division renews a crowded center while giving you new plants without letting it flower and self-seed.

In spring, before the new leaves push up, cut away and remove the old tattered foliage from the previous season. This is one of only two jobs the plant genuinely asks for in a year. The crown regrows from the center each spring, and old collapsed foliage sitting on it holds moisture against the new growth and hides the slugs that will graze the first tender leaves.

Check the new spring growth for slug damage, along with rust and powdery mildew on the foliage. Lay a board or moistened newspaper as a trap and clear it each morning, water early in the day so leaves and soil dry out, and space plants for air movement. If you need a bait, iron phosphate is the one to use. Slugs shelter in damp cover overnight and graze the tender young leaves that are the entire point of this crop, and the moist soil bloody dock prefers is exactly the condition that keeps them and the foliar fungi active.

As soon as the tall flower stalks appear, cut them out at the base. If you do let a plant flower and set seed, cut it back hard afterward to rejuvenate it. The inflorescence is not ornamental and pulls the plant's energy into seed instead of leaf. Removing it forces bushier basal growth and keeps the leaves coming, and it stops the self-seeding that lets this plant turn weedy and escape the bed.

Take the young, tender leaves for salads and let the plant keep producing. Young leaves are good raw or cooked. Older leaves turn bitter and tough, so pick them small rather than waiting for size. Leaf quality falls off sharply with age in this species — older leaves go bitter and tough — so the harvest window on any given leaf is short and repeated picking of small leaves is what keeps the crop worth eating.