Nettles & Docs

[nickdub]

The country people used to believe that there was a time of year when it was much easier to pull up docks by hand for a few weeks. My memory is very vague there days, but I've feeling it was around mid May. I tried Googling it, but a lot of this country lore is only written down in old books and I didn't have any luck trying to find a specific reference.

What we need is a volunteer to choose a good healthy dock plant, and give it a trial tug every week or so :-)

[Martin H]

The theory is that if you wait until the dock sends up a flower spike, just before it actually flowers you can get hold of the spike and pull, the whole thing comes up intact, tap root and all.

It only works about a quarter of the time where I am, because they don't usually have a single tap root. They hit stones and fork just like the carrots do, which means they hold on tight to the ground and snap off at or around ground level. But if your soil is better than mine, you have a chance.

[muck lover]

The theory is that if you wait until the dock sends up a flower spike, just before it actually flowers you can get hold of the spike and pull, the whole thing comes up intact, tap root and all.

It only works about a quarter of the time where I am, because they don't usually have a single tap root. They hit stones and fork just like the carrots do, which means they hold on tight to the ground and snap off at or around ground level. But if your soil is better than mine, you have a chance.

Let’s try that in your garden. I’m sticking with the pulvarization by hammer.