growing horseradish question

let me know how you make out with it. all i can tell you is that i'm surprised to hear it took a while to get going. my father knew i liked horseradish, and got a root from a friend to transplant. he tossed it in the back of his truck, forgot about it, and drove around with it all summer. when he spotted it again, it was a dried hard little stick. he said "oh sh**", and shrugged, dragged his heel in the garden, and buried it, assuming it was toast.

next spring it came up, and we had a massive root. wrecked the blender trying to make prepared horseradish. shoulda grated it. wear a gasmask though, it's pungent.

the stuff is great. i am a pansy with regard to super-hot pepper, but i can eat horseradish by the spoonful, and always eat the giant ball of wasabi last. if you get too much to use yourself out of this, sign me up for a jar

i think i have "gutter horseradish" too. way up high. gonna need a ladder to harvest it.

can you eat moss? my roof is covered in it. :laugh:

the immersion blender holds up? do you have a heavy-duty one? we have a real old one, when they first came out. not sure it would handle it.

lemme ask you... i have started asparagus from rootstocks bought at a garden center, perrenials from rhizomes, etc. And started other things from seed.

but aside from a neighbor with a horseradish plant, where can i get one to start?

hmmmm...off to google. would be great to plant some again.

send me your address i will have some in priority mail this afternoon.
will be back in a minute with link to imersion blender just small chunks of horseradish.

If you want it to spread out, run it over with a tiller. I had a similar experience to your earlier one, where I had a few plants that grew nice big leaves, but never flowered or grew a root. When I tilled some compost under for the winter, I just ran them over. The next year, they were all over my garden. Two years later, I'm still pulling some up.

I'd love to grow some that actually works. I just figured they wouldn't grow in MA, but you're getting it to grow, so that's not the case. Guess I'll try again some time.

-John

i actually have picked up pieces i find on the ground, and simply stuck it where i wanted on a rock wall. a couple pieces fall off, but they actually stick quickly and "take root" in a way. stuff does spread quickly. i'm a fan of lichen and moss.

don't get me started on pressure washing an old stone wall.
hahahaha

my dad grew his in southern NH, just over the border. he didn't do any research or anything, just planted it in very loamy dark soil, which he turns over every year. it's a somewhat wet spot, soil isn't sandy or very "loose" per s, but is easy to dig. don't know if that helps the root. i remember the thing was about two feet deep at least.

we have stone walls all around the place, but the existing garage was concrete block. i couldn't find real stone that was veneer depth (sawn, 4"inches thick) that didn't cost an arm and a leg. so we had to use cultured stone in as close a match as possible.

my neighbors were a little puzzled when i mixed a bucket of mud and moss and wiped it all over the brand new stone veneer. the guy two doors down pressure washed his walls the day he moved in, took off 75 years worth of lichen and moss. and here i am two doors up trying to make my walls dirty and mossed-up :laugh:

great link. thx

put some elmers glue in the moss milk mixture helps it stick works for making mossy pots.

you mean fresh horseradish for sale in the produce department? i bet that would work after all

don't think there's a real recipe. don't even need a blender, really. just as much moss as you can find, some water, the milk, and mash it up.