horseradish

[billw]

Our whole property is pretty much a wetland edge, so that fits. I have dug up lateral horseradish roots that were more than five feet long.

[12540dumont]

Now, my entire farm is an experiment in entropy or chaos...depending on which side of the equation you are on. My next farm I'll call the "Entropy of Chaos".

I too have pony radish. Since planting it 20 years ago, it's gone from one plant to 5. At that rate, I figure I can harvest one every 5 years. My neighbor put one in and has it everywhere.

Me, I have unrelenting bind weed. Evil stuff, not edible. I just get rid of it in one area, and it comes back. (Kind of like relatives).

I have bamboo in a 15 gallon container, as Leo was afraid of what I'd unleash if I planted it. I was kinda hoping for a forest, but in a container, it's a wee forest.

Minnie, I saw a place with old bathtubs in Minnesota, might be just the thing. I have an old horse trough that I'm planning on transplanting the bamboo to.

[paquebot]

Interesting that someone has seen long lateral roots. I've never seen them. It may be because of the endless deep soil that mine have been growing in for 30-40 years. They have no trouble going straight down and don't have to wander. I do find that if I dig a large root there will be a number of small plants come up all around where the original root was. It only takes a small piece of root to start a new plant. I hoe them off a few times and that's the end of them.

Martin

[freeholder]

We lived for a while not too far from where Daniel Webster was born, in New Hampshire. His birthplace is now a park, and we helped out with the living history stuff there on weekends a few times. One of the ladies mentioned something about wishing she had some horseradish, and I pointed to the (somewhat unkempt) lawn and told her it was growing all over the place. I don't KNOW, of course, that the horseradish in the lawn there had been planted by Daniel Webster's parents (he was only two when they moved to another location, so was probably too young to have planted it himself ), but it certainly COULD have been. The property we were living on, another old farm, also had horseradish in the yard; again, who knows how long it had been there. We used it, though it was somewhat difficult to dig in all the rocks (New Hampshire, the Granite State!). It does need quite a bit of moisture; I've got a plant in a pot here and have been trying to decide where to put it. I don't much care if it spreads, but it needs to have plenty of water and also be easy to dig, and we have at least as many volcanic rocks as the Granite State has granite.


Kathleen

[oxbowfarm]

I find it similar to comfrey. It will stay where you plant it (here, at least) but if you move a chunk of the root you get a new plant, and it will resprout from harvested root even if the remaining root is very deep 18". Tilling it is very unwise unless you want a massive horseradish mess. I have never seen lateral runners.

[Deleted]

I have pruned a long hedge, planted besides a hot, compacted, south-facing, white, gravel alleyway. This gave me room to plant a single row of vegetables, under irrigation. In bright and dry conditions, horseradish will not grow away from the drip.

But, other, cruciferous vegetables look prehistoric to me, when they are planted in our shade, as in the north side of the house, were it tends to be more moist.

[steev]

In six years, my horseradish has expanded to a patch 1 1/2' across; when can I expect it to go nuts?

[philagardener]

I think trixtrax had it right early in this thread - when you forget and rototill through, that that will be it!

Following on the "Entropy of Chaos", that might be the biological equivalent of a en-garden supernova. A small and powerful horseradish outbreak!

[trixtrax]

lol philagardener. So, plant and rototill at cityhall?

[trixtrax]

As part of a community edible gardening initiative, of course

[steev]

I'm not sure horseradish would thrive in an environment potentially so full of BS.