How and What to Grow in a Kitchen Garden of One Acre (10th Ed)/Horse Radish
HORSE RADISH.
This pungent root is a great favorite as a relish in the early spring, and is credited with tonic properties; at any rate it is a very pleasant appetizer at a season when we have been almost without fresh vegetables for several months. It can be raised in almost any soil, though preferring a moist situation, and is most at home where it is constantly moistened or occasionally overflowed by some stream. It is raised from pieces of root, three or four inches in length and from ¼ to ½ inch in diameter. These slips are made from the tails or rootlets cut off in trimming the roots for grating, they should be cut off square at the top and sloping at the bottom, that you may readily know which end goes up when you plant them. The slips should be kept in a box of moist earth, in a cool cellar, after they have been trimmed, until planting time. The slips can be planted with a long trowel; but the best and quickest way is to drive a spade, full depth, into the soil, flatways with the garden line, move it slightly back and forward, to widen the hole, and slip a piece of root down each side of the cut made by the spade, which will make them six or seven inches apart; the spade should then be driven in about one inch back of its previous position and the handle pressed forward, which will pack the dirt solidly against the planted roots, the tops of which should be placed about one inch under the surface. Where it is desired to increase the supply as fast as possible, and where the roots have been used at home, the crowns or tops, with an inch or so of root adhering, can be planted again, but they will not make long, smooth roots, like the slips, but will have a tendency to make several small roots.