The picture above is a big bunch of horseradish leaves, attached to some pretty good root pieces that I got from one of my wife’s co-workers. He has been trying for several seasons to get rid of the horseradish. Apparently if you don’t dig up EVERY BIT of root, it comes back again.
By the time I took these pictures, the horseradish had been out of his garden for about an hour, but the leaves were wilting quickly.
Six days later, the leaves are completely dead, but this does not worry me. Every source I have found that talks about horseradish leads me to believe I should have just removed the leaves before planting. The roots are basically indestructible.
I tore off this big muddy piece of root so I could try making a little prepared horseradish, but I will cover that in another post.
If I wanted to, I could take the piece of horseradish root shown above and just bury it in the ground, smaller end down, and it would grow me a whole new plant next spring.
Do you like horseradish? It’s the main spice in the most common cocktail sauce served with shrimp, but you knew that already didn’t you?
Posted by leslie on September 19, 2010 at 11:57 am
Cool!
Posted by Rachel on September 19, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Wow – great to know that horseradish is so hardy. Our household loves horseradish, so I’ll have to try finding a chunk of root to stick in the ground. Thanks for the post!
Posted by Jimmy Cracked-Corn on September 21, 2010 at 9:13 am
Yes, give it a try! I think I’m going to try canning a bit in a 4 ounce jelly jar to see how that turns out.
Posted by Dawn on November 16, 2012 at 6:40 pm
How did it work? I’m about to transplant a few plants that have been undisturbed for several years. Pointers?
Posted by Jimmy Cracked-Corn on November 28, 2012 at 8:51 pm
Horseradish will take over and grow from the smallest root. Mine filled about 16 square feet after being planted in a 2 x 2 square. When I dug the roots after 1 year + 1 season, they were massive 15 pound monsters.