Home Grown Horseradish (planting, grinding and storing)

It's that time of year again. Horseradish! Yum! It makes me do the happy dance. Harvested in early Spring after the last frost or late fall after the first 'hard' frost, home grown can't get any better than this. I'm telling you... just the word 'horseradish' makes my mouth water.

Doesn't matter what you are putting it on: potatoes, veggies, sandwiches, meats of any kind, adding it to mayo or mustard, drying it or sneaking a smidgen out of the jar in the fridge to just taste, this is one of those things that is just BEST made at home. Now there are a few tricks and that's what we are here today to discuss.

Growing horseradish is the easy part. It practically grows itself.. and honestly it is a very pretty plant. If you are lucky enough to know someone who grows it themselves and you can get a few starts, do that. Two or three healthy starts will give you more than enough for yourself and a friend or two. If not, order a few starts off line. I recommend that you do not buy starts from an in-store package deal. The few I have seen have looked too old and dried up to do anything. I can't for the life of me understand why someone would want to waste their money on them.

My husband and I mentioned to my dad when he was still alive that we wanted to add horseradish to our "backyard garden" and he took us to a neighbor friend of his, who gladly donated three starts. Dad helped us dig them up and we planted them along the side of our garage. We waited a year and a half before we harvested the first time, hoping to give the plants plenty of time to grow... and boy did they!

Once they were cleaned we had around 12 pounds of root off of only two of the plants. We left the third plant to do in the spring. In the end, after grinding we had 17 (very full) quart bags. Let me tell you just how MUCH that is. It is now spring and time to harvest the one we left and I'm thinking.... ummmm... we just might wait until the fall. Given that we gave oodles away at Christmas time and we still have oodles in the freezer. Happy-Happy-Happy! (We also planted 3-more starts. Ohhh such a scary thought! lolol...)

So, here is the scoop.  Learned the hard way, since most of the articles we read on line were very vague and didn't give enough information.

Planting and Harvesting:

1. When planting your horseradish start. Dig a nice BIG hole. Six to eight inches deeper that the length of the root.
2. Plant your starts about 18 inches apart.
3. Once you placed your start, surround it with nice rich nutrient soil, from your compost bin if possible. Loosely fill in the dirt around and over your start and keep it damp, not soaked, until it breaks the soil. 
4. It will grow to be about 4 to 4/2 foot tall with some very lush, beautiful broad leaves.
5. Do not cut the first year.
6. After harvesting, place a part of the root. (6-8 inch piece) back into the ground, pointy end down.
7. If you have multiple plants, harvest in a every other or every two year pattern for multiple plants. That way you have fresh horseradish every year. 

Cleaning:

1. Initially use a hose in the yard to remove the largest part of the dirt. We used a scrub brush, the stiff kind you wash your car tires with, to help with the removal process. It worked great!
2. In the kitchen sink use a combination of running water, vegetable peeler and a stainless steel scrubber to remove the bark type dirty skin off the outside of the horseradish. There are spots you will not be able to reach that hold dirt. I use a very sharp pairing knife to slice these areas away.
3. Using a Cook Knife or a Santoku Knife and a wooden cutting board, cut/break through the root and cut into smaller pieces.  (The picture on the right is the first cutting, we didn't know that it really needed to be smaller than that.)

Grinding and Storing:

1. We used a meat grinder to grind the horseradish. (I'm not sure we will do that again. But, I'm not at all sure how else to approach it. I am SURE that there is other ways to grind it other than what we did. The root itself is very fibrous and hard to work with. HOWEVER, never fear, we accidentally hit on a solution!) 
2. Cover your cut up horseradish in white vinegar and allow to set over night before grinding. (Every thing we read said that the vinegar stopped the heat process. I'm sure to a certain extent it does. However, everything we are still opening is HOT! Yummy-hot... and we froze it in the vinegar.) 
3. After grinding place 2 cups in each Ziploc freezer bag, removing all the air as you seal it, lay it flat and freeze. 
   
4. Don't forget to date and label all your bags of horseradish. They should last about a year in the deep freeze.
5. A plastic Ziploc container or a recycled glass jar with a screw on lid works great in the fridge. This also makes awesome gifts! Everyone loves horseradish and homegrown is the BEST!

My husband Jeff would like for me to remind you to have a box of Kleenex handy. Your eyes and sinus we will be in overload. We cried like we have never cried before. It was actually kind of funny seeing as how it burned your eyes but in a different way than onions. We smelled horseradish for days after... I actually think it was IN our sinuses. 

We also tried drying the root. Jeff read on line somewhere where it could be done. And while we are AVID dehydrators I was a little skeptical. Jeff was somewhat pleased with his lil-experiment. He started with it in the house and we quickly decided that was NOT the way to go. He took it to the front porch, while it's enclosed it will is far enough away and closed off to not bother us... (to much)

I made some Quark cheese (also known as Farmers cheese) not to long after and we tried it in a small portion of the cheese. I wasn't sold on it but Jeff thought it was great.  I love having quantities of horseradish at my disposal, I swear before we got into the home grown horseradish business we probably needed to buy stock in someones company because we used a TON!

Let me know how your experience goes. I would love to know. Also.... if you know a better way of grinding PLEASE let me know ASAP! We are soon to do another batch and if there is another way I NEED to know. lolol....

Enjoy!

Kerri Downey