Horseradish.. how to?

mansgirl · Tue May 31, 2011 7:05 pm

I recently bought a pack of three sets of horseradish. It came in wood shavings..? Has anyone grown this before? Any tips? How do I plant the sets, and how far apart? Unfortuantely the packaging didn't give me many tips.

The Bearded Farmer · Tue May 31, 2011 8:28 pm

Just throw those suckers in the ground and let them go. I would put them roughly a foot apart, they get really large leaves by fall.

When harvesting dig the plant out and cut 3/4 of the large root off then replant immediatly and water well. It is best to make one big harvest in the fall. If you let it go through a frost or 2 the horseradish gets much more spicy.

Other than that they are very low maintinence and grow vigorously. They also spread from year to year. Cut the plant back iand mulch n the winter for strong regrowth in the fall

gixxerific · Tue May 31, 2011 10:20 pm

They do grow VERY VIGOROUSLY. So be careful, maybe try them in pots for the first time. If you don't get 110 % of the root up it WILL come back and can spread to the point of being a nuisance.

Don't let me scare you away just be careful there is a Ton of info on the web, even YouTube.

I love horseradish but have not gotten the nerve yet to try them. I would like to try in pots myself.

But they are basically a bulb, toss it in the ground and it will grow.

mansgirl · Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:22 pm

Thanks so much guys! I'll give these a try.. very carefully!

vegetable-gardener88 · Tue Jun 07, 2011 9:04 am

I grew horseradish at our previous house. And I can tell it grows everywhere. A tiny bit breaks of and bingo it grows! I was told afterwards that I should have put plastic in the hole before I planted it. Or place a large pot - the things is it needs to be large because the roots go very deep and you'll want to dig it out when you want to use the horseradish. And you don't want to damage the plastic.

Hope that helps:)

garden5 · Tue Jun 07, 2011 9:24 am

It might not even be a bad idea too give them their own separate bed so that the will not be able to take over your garden.

Also, something interesting is that if you eat a chunk of raw horseradish....it really isn't that hot. But, if you grate it, then you will get the intense heat.

gixxerific · Tue Jun 07, 2011 8:16 pm

Make that "separate bed" on concrete even. We have people on here with raised beds on concrete that do well.

I saw a video of one guy with horseradish who planted it in one spot only to find it coming up 15- 20 feet away.

I tried to find that vid the other day but couldn't find it.

wordwiz · Tue Jun 07, 2011 10:07 pm

Actually, the talk about it taking over a space is not something I have seen. I've had plants for three years and they stay in the 2' wide space I started with. A caveat - we mow the grass on both sides weekly.

As far as increasing or decreasing the "heat" level, it depends on how long you soak the ground HR in vinegar. Two minutes will make it on the hot side of mild, three minutes will mean a warm hot.

A generally accepted rule is to let the plants grow for two seasons before harvesting, then harvest after a hard freeze or even when the ground thaws in the spring. When I tried harvesting some the first year, I got enough to make about a tablespoon of HR. I tried to dig up a root very early this spring, and I could have used a backhoe. Didn't get close to getting all of it but just the main part, without all the side shoots (most of which I replanted) was 1.5 times the size of a softball! More than enough HR to last me a year!

Mike