Over the past 2 weeks I’ve been digging the tumbleweeds out of my garden. today I found the 2 horseradish plants I started back in March and they’re still alive.
This is the first time I’ve even planted them so first how do I know when to dig up the roots and second how can I process them. Just chop, simmer with vinegar and salt and can?
Man I love horseradish. Did you plant from seed?
You could pickle then process at will? I’ve only had it as a puree from the jar. That gets added to sour cream or what not.
I don’t know when you’re supposed to do it, but I usually harvest in the fall. I wash them, peel them, and grate very fine. I’ve played around with timing on when to add the vinegar, I’ve read that three minutes will give you peak heat, but since it takes way more than three minutes for me to grate the whole root that doesn’t really work out. Anyway, I never simmer it at all - I just add some vinegar and salt to taste, then stick it in the fridge. No sour cream or anything else mixed into mine.
Fresh prepared horseradish is awesome on roast beef! ;D
The R.o.T. that really works is that you can dig Horseradish in any month that
has the letter “R” in it’s spelling. So wait till SeptembeR…or OctobeR…
etc…
I brewed a beer with this as an ingredient Once…and ONLY once…mind you…
http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=40501&p=353145&hilit=horseradish#p353145
Edit: My horseradish plants are doing nicely this year. They thrive on neglect and poor conditions.
WalMart had them as root sections. I just bought one package of 2 roots, if this works I’ll plant a bunch more next year. That they survived this summer is amazing.
I like my horseradish straight, just a little salt and vinegar. And I really love a tiny dab of it on raw oysters.
I saw someone make some on a cooking show last night - they cut it into chunks and pureed it in a food processor. It seemed to work really well, I’ll try that next time instead of grating. That would help with the 3-minute timing too.
Unfortunately they didn’t explain their recipe at all, they just showed “after” in the cuisinart.
Wear PPE, Gloves, Goggles… 
Edit; Maybe even consider move your operations to the outside.
Oysters wouldn’t be the same without it.
Did some light research and it appears they’re invasive. I’m looking for a spot in the back. If they don’t need much water then it’s golden. Wonder if the plants will keep the feral cats out of my backyard?
Definitely invasive. I keep mine in a pot, same as my mint.
Horseradish will take over wherever you plant it, and the surrounding area too. It can be started by planting the cut off tops of the roots (like starting carrots) or just planting a piece of the root so that part of it comes out above the ground’s surface.
It takes a lot of effort to keep horseradish from growing. Heap abuse upon it and it comes back even stronger.
A farmer in my area grew it 50 years ago commercially and you can still go harvest it from the ditch. Very, very hard to get rid of. Roundup will do it at a high rate if sprayed in the fall but otherwise, you’ll have it forever.