Harvesting Horseradish Monday

I have noticed that the prefix horse is often put in front of what people consider coarse vegetables like horseradish, horse chestnut, and horsemint. Or perhaps it refers to a wild plant, found in fields like cow parsley or cow parsnip. Of course, adding field before plants is also common from field bindweed to field horsetail to go full circle.


On first inspection, not very promising - a bed of dead horseradish leaves.

The experts on wiki tell me that:

"Where the English name horseradish comes from is not certain. It may derive by misinterpretation of the German name Meerrettich ("sea radish") as Mährrettich ("mare radish"). Some think it is because of the coarseness of the root. In Europe the common version is that it refers to the old method of processing the root called "hoofing." Horses were used to stamp the root tender before grating it."

It is an exceptionally hardy member of the Brassicacaea family, considered if not invasive, then at least persistant. The roots, early shoots, and seeds can be used according to Plants for a Future. However, they are normally propagated vegetatively so you'll probably have to look elsewhere to seed your mustard mix.


Digging in the soil reveals roots and shoots.

Best known of its traditional uses is when the macerated root is mixed with vinegar to produce the piquant sauce bearing its name. I like horseradish sauce but don't use a whole lot of it so I thought I would follow up on advice given to me in several sources to boil the roots. This destroys the volatile 'mustard' oils producing a rather bland root vegetable. I'll let you know next time what it tasted like.


I love the soft focus of this picture - must have been steam forming on the lens after being outside in the ch-ch-chilly fall.

Despite its invasive nature, I tend to plant it In The Perennial Garden because I like the look of its large, coarse leaves. There is also a variegated variety sometimes available (you'll note most comments on the link are about locating it). These can provide a dramatic contrast with finer textured plants.


Picture of horseradish in flower with daylily in front if I remember correctly from my old garden.

A first Harvest Monday!

Now that a 50ft tower graces the back of our rural abode, we have internet. So I can bring you harvests. The garden(s) are mostly still about input what with all the bed shaping and seeding for next year's splendor but I have had some outputs.


Massive 3 pie butternuts, organic (spotty) apples, potatoes and a few of the many, many Fatali that the two year old plant produced.

Digging in the old vegetable garden unearthed a good helping of potatoes. And the owners were kind to leave us with a surplus of apples and giant winter squash. I'll cook some of these apples up with Fatali habanero that are finally ripe - not your kid's apple sauce.


Greens in the low, winter sunlight.

Not too much still growing in the garden (we'll change that for next year) but I did harvest some parsley, sorrel, dill and violets for a green sauce.

Okay, break's over, back to work.

In Loving Memory

To our baby boy that lived for 20 weeks in the womb and forever after in our hearts.

Harvest Monday - Kale, kale and some chard

Kale with red oak leaves: Red Ursa is a beautiful, dependable, tender and tasty kale, originally from Wild Garden Seeds. I also quite like Dwarf Blue Curled Scotch - a frilly green variety. I don't typically grow taller types like palm/lacinato (B. oleracea) as I imagine they'd be more prone to die back above the snowline though I have not tried them so this is only a guess.

The kale that grows itself in my garden is Red Ursa - Brassica napus. I started these some years back and the winter survivors became the seed parents to a plentiful crop ever after. As vegetables go, and brassicas in particular, it is a easy, versatile plant. Hardy, they provide a three season harvest, even four during the milder winter months. Besides their leaves, you can eat the flowerheads like broccolini, the immature seedpods like rattail radish and the seeds as mustard or sprouted as microgreens.

Like the rest of the vegetable brassica tribe, they are also darn good for you. Doesn't the word kale just reek of nutrition? Doesn't the five year old in year wish for cookies instead?

Actually, I ♥ kale.


Perennial kale variety Daubenton growing near its so-called biennial cousin. This is a huge plant taking up a 3x4x3 foot space approximately in its second year but really can you have too much kale? It's much more strongly flavoured than the other kales I grow in the garden.

Also, it is beautiful in the garden. In the spring, transplant or seed a purple or blue toned variety near your asters or chrysanthemums. When the temperatures dip, they will take on vibrant cool tones that act as a fabulous foil for late season flowers. Their coarse textured leaves contrast nicely with grasses too.

Whattabout the chard? Oh yes, also harvesting greens like docks, chard, onions & roots like Jeruselum Artichokes, crosnes and salsify & various herbs

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Didn't get your fill of kale? Here's a good article: The Best Kales by Mother Earth News

Tomato seed 'ick

To borrow a phrase from the youngsters 'That's sick!'



The process of fermentation of tomato seeds leads to a gross slick of mold* on top of the liquid. This is supposed to remove the germination inhibiting gel cap around the seed and eliminate some pathogens. It's cool. It's gross. It's sick - I guess.

When you see free tomato seeds sunk to the bottom of your science experiment and blech on the top, you can rinse your seed, using a bleach wash if you want.

* What the heck is that stuff? Googling reveals that it is known as 'white mold,' 'good mold,' and other descriptive names like 'foamy' mold. Along with the pale mold, I sometimes see a greenish growth like you see on bread. If you know the name of a common mold enlisted in this fermentation process, please let me know.

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We have been busy beavers around here as in two weeks we will be saying goodbye to one trusty garden friend and restarting operations at our new garden which will hopefully serve our family just as faithfully. In the meantime, I may be a bit slow on the posts.

Another Gardener brought you this Harvest Day

A day late and not even my harvest but a friend's - Canadamike.


The fall bounty of squash (mostly maximas), tomatoes (some OSU crosses) and canned goodies.

Nevertheless, it is a beautiful gift.

Sort seed easy with gravity and water

Seed Saving Tip 4 - Get Nature to do the Sorting - gravity and water

A great many techniques, both wet and dry, ultimately use the difference in mass between chaff and seed to sort quickly. And now an example:

Young magenta spreen, Chenopodium gigantium.

I noticed that small birds like sparrow and chickadee were plucking at the Magenta Spreen so I figured that they must be ripe. It is a gigantic relative of lamb's quarters with a striking fushia centres in early growth. Here is when I get experimental.

Mature plants have sturdy stems up around 6-8 feet tall in my garden. As the season nears its end, they regain their brilliant colouration resembling fall leaves.

Early, I had cut some mature seedheads for indoor drying because the weather is attempting to break another record making this an exceptionally rainy September.

Dry seedheads

I rubbed off the seeds with chaff into a bowl and discarded the stems. Since I'm a lazy gardener, I normally stop here but for the sake of public knowledge dissemination, I thought I'd try and clean the chaff from the seed this time.

The seeds are enveloped in chaff coats that resemble tiny stars when rubbed off. The seeds are round and black.

First I rubbed the seeds gently against a screen but that didn't seem particularly more effective them rubbing them with my hands and I didn't want to scratch them too much so I went back to rubbing them between my fingers.

I tried rubbing across a screen but something about me just likes to get my hands in. It took me forever to start wearing gloves when gardening because I loved to feel the dirt. Only my hands didn't cope well with the drying and abrasive affect of the soil.

To separate the chaff that I had loosened from the small, black seeds, I poured them from one bowl to another - a version of winnowing. Result: fail.

Winnowing in this way is a highly effective technique for separating many seeds from chaff if the chaff is easily blown away by the wind and the seeds are comparitively heavier. This didn't seem to work with these seeds. At least not with today's weather.

Then I chatted with a seed saving friend and he said, why don't you try water separation?

I said, "Indeed why not?"

Still plenty of greenish coloured chaff.

I poured the mess into water. The seeds didn't wet easily so I had to give it a stir and let the seeds settle out for a minute or two.

You can see the good seed at the bottom of the bowl.

The chaff, some seeds - yes, some are lost but we are talking a seed generous Chenopodium here, were poured off the top, leaving the dark clump of nearly pure seed to be strained from the bottom. I did this twice to get the most seeds and the least chaff.

Bye, bye chaff.

The seeds were plopped onto some paper towels then squeezed a bit drier. The fact that water didn't seem to adhere easily made them easy to dry and easy to dump off onto more dry paper towel for final drying. This needs to be done fast so they don't sprout or spoil.

Clean magenta spreen seed.

Thanks nature.

Would you like some magenta spreen seeds? Well you are in luck. I have many more seeds heads to process now that I know what to do. Send me an email - right hand side - and I'll send you seeds.

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Winnowing works: Processing Amaranth seed by Orlo

Wet processing seed - Tomatillo example