Horseradish Plant is Thriving

About two months ago Liz and Bill visited and brought me a beautiful horseradish root. I actually cut it in half as I could not part with the entire root and planted the one half in the ground at the beginning of one of my flower beds. I held out little hope that this would grow here after reading several accounts from other more experienced gardeners than myself that theirs never even came out of the ground here on the coast.

Below is a picture from March 24th where it started to sprout.

The photo below was taken a few days ago.

I actually don’t think I gave this plant enough room to grow but with our yard as small as it is, well I guess this will have to do for right now. I did a bit of reading and found out that the plant can grow to almost two feet high, is a perennial and will continue to grow for three years. The leaves can also be cut and eaten raw and have the same spicy taste as the root.

I am now researching how to can or somehow preserve what I hope to harvest..Just another day at the little house on the costa..

Trying My Hand at Planting

I wanted to share with you a few plants that have started to spring up in my garden. First and foremost a special thank you to Liz for bringing a horseradish root on the plane with her when she visited a few weeks ago. I cut it in half not wanting to ruin the entire root and followed the instructions I found on the internet. I planted it on an angle and it has started to grow. Now I am not sure that it will continue to thrive here because of how warm it is but I have faith that I am supposed to have a horseradish plant.

Next to the horseradish plant I planted several cloves of garlic. They are springing up but again I am not sure they will do well in this heat so I am going to clip the tops and add to salads for a nice garlicky hit.

I have also planted a few knobs of ginger and again they are starting to sprout so keep your fingers crossed that they will grow for us.

I also planted the seeds from a Hawaiian papaya – they tend to be a bit sweeter than the big ones. I know they need to be thinned out but I just cannot make myself destroy these little babies just yet, maybe next week I will be ready to pull them up.

I have several dill plants that are doing their best to make it. We could sure use some fresh dill for my mother’s chicken soup recipe.

Now here are the bouganvilla plants that I cut from beautiful red-flowered plants growing on the fence of Vista Azul. I planted them months ago before the rain started and they did nothing for so long I thought they were dead. Look at those beautiful red flowers, these have the long spikes and will be added security on our wall on the street side of our property.

Well, off to re-pot all my potted plants. Max our neighbor brought me two huge sacks of soil from his farm. It is so black and rich I know my potted plants will just go wild for it. Now all I need is that old straw hat my Dad would wear in his garden…………….