Horseradish- now what???

RidgebackRanch

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Hi Lesa, we learned that growing horseradish with as little added water as possible will help it keep its bite. We thought we were being good gardeners by regularly watering and fertilizing our patch. The leaves were enormous and it actually bloomed but it had no bite.

Now it is left to thrive on its own. It often does not look like much on the surface but the roots below do their thing and it now will snap your head back if you smel the jar too closely. It makes a great gift for those who really love the strong stuff!:)
 

lesa

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Welcome! What an interesting tip... some plants just don't need to be babied! I didn't do anything extra to this, so we shall see. The sun is out, so today is the day I will dig a little up, and see what we have! Somehow I have two patches now. It traveled a few rows over, guessing a piece of root got dug up and moved by accident! I think I will try and get rid of the second patch. I like horseradish, but you can only use so much!
 

Collector

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Am I understanding thi right that you only plant horse radish once and it keeps coming back? what do you do with the ones you are not going to use this season, just leave them in the ground?
 

bigredfeather

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Collector said:
Am I understanding thi right that you only plant horse radish once and it keeps coming back? what do you do with the ones you are not going to use this season, just leave them in the ground?
Yes. If you do nothing, the tops will die off in the Fall, and come back in the Spring. I just dug some this weekend, and below the ground, you could see next years sprout starting. The batch I just did was really hot, almost too hot for my liking.
 

lesa

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This weekend flew by, and I didn't dig any! Now it is pouring- next chance I get, I've got to do it! It would be fun to have a little homegrown horseradish with the potatoes on Thanksgiving.
 

hoodat

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The biggest trouble with horse radish is that once you have it it's forever. Dig those accidental volunteers as soon as you spot them and be sure to get all of the root while they are still small.
Don't forget that the leaves make very good cooked greens, kind of like mustard greens.
A secondary benefit is that it acts as a snail trap. Snails come to it from all over your garden so they're concentrated in one place and easier to deal with.
 

lesa

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Hoodat, do the leaves taste like horseradish? I am assuming this would done in the spring, with small leaves? Strangely, I caught a lot of cucumber beetles on them- though they didn't seem to do any damage...
 

ninny

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Couple different questions

What is fermantion? Why do you do it? Can horseradish be grown in containers?
 

saym

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I think this posting is in a time warp! I was reading since befopre Thanksgiving and then all of a sudden two weeks ago..
With horseradish you may want to corral it, but I am not sure how it would do in a container.. I do not corral mine, it's on the edge of the garden towards the rocks, weeds, woodstove ash dumping pit, (You get the picture) it actually stays manageable..Nothing flourishes in Elko county though,except these really nasty weeds.
I am kind of excited to hear from Hoodat that the leaves are edible...stay tuned!.... 6 more months to go before we see green!

Try it in a container... larger one..see how it does..if it doesn't do what you want..plant it...I have a bunch of cut off 15 gall0on pots that I use as corrals for mint and other aggressive growers
 

hoodat

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If you grow it in a container use something like a used 5 gallon plastic nursery pot. The roots will jam so tightly into the container that the only way to get it out is to destroy the container so I wouldn't want to use a nice pot. Sometimes the roots will exert so much pressure they will break a clay pot.
 

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