Growing Horseradish – Tips on How to Grow and Store Horseradish
Horseradish is a taste made for adult palates, and you either love it or hate it. For those who love it enough to want to grow their own horseradish, here’s some tips on how to grow horseradish in an article we liked.
Title: Horseradish – Grow and Preserve Your Own
Author: CatalanGardener
Article: Growing your own horseradish is a simple business. Best of all, once you grow a bit you’ll have it, for free, forever. Now that’s what I call sustainable gardening! Horseradish is simple to prepare, preserve and make sauces with, so if you enjoy horseradish with beef or lamb, or just in your mashed potatoes why not grow your own. You don’t even need a garden, just enough space for a pot and you can grow your own supply. What are you waiting for?
How to Grow Horseradish
- In mid winter to early spring buy a little fresh horseradish root from your local grocer.
- Plant two inch sections of horseradish any way up you like but flat is best, in a tall pot filled with well rotted compost. Plant in the ground if you’ve lots of room but prepare for it to spread about your plot. A section of drainage pipe is the best thing to plant in, as it will encourage long straight roots and prevent the plant taking over your garden!
- Water well.
- That’s it – water if it gets very dry in the summer and watch it flourish.
- Horseradish is a very rigorous plant but isn’t a fan of hot sun, so if you live somewhere blessed with hot sunny summers, keep your horseradish in dappled shade.
- Through the summer you can eat fresh young horseradish leaves in your salads.
- In late autumn when all the leaves have died back dig up the horseradish, reserving a few sections to be replanted for next year’s crop.
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How to Preserve Horseradish
If you don’t want to eat all your horseradish in one go the best thing to do is preserve some. If you tackle this job when the roots are fresh from the ground you’ll find the flesh softer and peel thinner to deal with.
- Scrub and peel the roots.
- Grate finely, being careful not to breathe in too many horseradish fumes – its eye-watering stuff!
- Mix with vinegar, salt & sugar. For every 3 tbsp of horseradish add 1tbsp white wine vinegar, 1tsp sugar and a pinch of salt.
- Decant the mixture into sterilised jars, seal and refrigerate.
This preserved horseradish will keep for up to six months, stored in the refrigerator. You can use it as it is, or mix up with cream, mayonnaise, creme fresh or yogurt to create your own horseradish sauce.
Don’t just eat your horseradish with beef, its great with oily fish, cabbage, potatoes, cowslaw and loads of other things too!
We’ve got lots more easy to understand advice for growing your own vegetables, and ideas and recipes for preserving your harvest too.
For more information vegetable growing, composting and making the most of your crops visit our website: The Catalan Gardener
About the author: Organic veg gardening and off-grid living in Southern Catalunya
Filed under Growing Vegetables by John
Comments on Growing Horseradish – Tips on How to Grow and Store Horseradish »
Barbara Hays @ 7:21 pm
I wanted info on horseradish storage. I found not only that but much more. Thanks, bh
Corrie van Rooyen - South Africa @ 10:03 am
A nice article, for a plant which I enjoy a lot.
I battled here to get some roots for planting, and eventually was given a few plants by a complete stranger who happened to notice my searching status comments on Facebook!
I fetched the offered plants immediately – it was around autumn, and the plants had a fair bit of root which I immediately converted to a fine relish. That was consumed in no time by my family.
The few ‘heads’ I split in half, and planted about 8 pieces in an area 3m long and 1m wide.
Soon shoots appeared, and I resplit them (about 2 months later) to yield a total of 14 plants.
Those have been growing in that 3 sq. m section of my herb garden, and the upper growth is really impressive.
I made sure the soil was well loosened and compossed to about 18inches below the surface, and I expect to have a fine first harvest sometime near April. Hope it works!
In the meantime, I have had so many requests from others for plants – so I guess the smaller roots will all end up as little donations – the plants seem to grow from almost the most inconspicuous pieces of root with minimal care.
I also noticed that the plants will really take over a garden – so for my next planting I have prepared some 10 sq. meters, which with a touch of luck should eventually yield a rather huge home garden harvest.
The stuff is great tasting, but rather intense in preparing. The result is well worth the effort though, and the growing is so easy that the preparation process is no real problem – a nice labour variation to the gardening effort