Just dug the horseradish for the first time

Don't do anything but dig up everything you need (or can find). There will _always_ be enough small pieces to grow new roots. When you buy horseradish from nurseries, you get a bundle of the small lateral roots to plant as root cuttings.

What's the difference between true love and horseradish?

Horseradish is forever!

Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G

I used to let horseradish grow back from the small roots left in the ground. Horseradish is said to be evasive but apparently I lost mine due to damn deer that eat everything - not roots but crown.

Any little root will grow if the conditions are good.

David

You wouldn't need to have deer, those evasive plants lose themselves like politicians photographed with someone else's spouse.

David.

Rather than grind up all of it and have it go stale on me, I assume I can freeze big pieces to thaw whenever I want fresh HR?

Bob

Some root vegs will do just find ignored and you can take a piece when you want. I'll look for copicing root vegetables.

Lets see.

sometime in the recent past zxcvbob posted this:

I held a half dozen finger sized roots about 5" long over the winter in a plastic bag in my refrigerator crisper. When I remembered them in May, they were covered with green mold which I washed off. I planted them in the garden at 45° angles with the top end only down about 2" and every one of them sprouted. They are still growing strong 8 years later. In my hard clay soil, I almost need a backhoe to harvest any.

For me, besides fresh which is the best, we grind up a batch adding a bit of salt and lemon juice and then freeze it in 1/2 C jars until we need them. The heat does diminish, but the flavor is still very good. If I need more heat in my cocktail sauce, I add a little Sriracha.

We double-grind it and for each cup of ground horseradish we add 3 T lemon juice, 1/2 tsp. salt & 1/4 C water.