Pre-order Plants for Spring 2024 Shipping
Welcome to the Food Forest Farm plant shop! Here you’ll find many of the plants we’ve been growing in the nursery since 2010. These plants will come to you healthy and ready for their new home.
All of our plants are multi-functional, that is, some perennial vegetables can be eaten by a human, or livestock (leaf hay), or be grown as mulch for biomass, and more! You can look at “All” of the plants, or filter with the navigation bar.
Perennial Vegetables: edible roots, leaves, shoots, buds, seeds that come from perennial herbs, shrubs, and trees
Fruit: edible sweet goodness
Leaf Hay: plants to grow and feed to livestock like cattle, sheep, goats and rabbits
Biomass: herbs, grasses, shrubs and trees that grow fast and can be cut and used as mulch, grow soil, fuel stoves and compost piles
Horse Radish crown
Horse Radish crown
Armoracia rusticana
Make your own spicy mustard or sushi wasabi or nutrient dense fire cider with the roots!
Tolerates most soils. Very little pest and disease issues. Deer proof but not slug proof although it can usually outgrow any slug damage. Grows fine for us in climate zone 5.
We are starting to grow this under our larger perennial plantings as good ground cover, think comfrey.
Easy to grow and have enough to trade with friends. One order includes a crown. Trust me, this is enough to keep you in horse radish for the rest of your life! If you are growing for a big family or community you may need more, but plant wisely, once you have this plant in your landscape, after harvest, each piece of root left in the ground will become a new plant.
Horseradish root has been ground into a spice, prepared as a condiment, and used medicinally for more than 3,000 years. It was used topically by both the Greeks and Romans as a poultice to ease muscle pain, such as back aches and menstrual cramps. Starting in the Middle Ages (ca. 1000-1300 CE), horseradish was incorporated into the Jewish Passover Seder as one of the maror, or bitter herbs. Historically, horseradish was used to treat a wide variety of illnesses including asthma, coughs, colic, toothache, and scurvy (due to its vitamin C content). The chemoprotective role of horseradish’s gluconsinolate content against various types of cancers in humans has been widely studied. Although broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica), Brussels sprouts (B. oleracea var. gemmifera), and other cruciferous vegetables also contain these compounds, horseradish has up to ten times more glucosinolates than other members of the family Brassicaceae.
Horseradish also contains allyl isothiocyanate, which is a well-recognized antimicrobial agent against a variety of organisms including pathogens like Escherichia coli (E. coli), a common food-borne pathogen, and Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), a bacteria known to cause stomach ulcers and increase the risk for gastric cancer. Due to its antibiotic properties, horseradish can be used to treat urinary tract infections and destroy bacteria in the throat that can cause bronchitis, coughs, and other related problems. In a recent study, isothiocyanates extracted from horseradish showed antimicrobial activity against ten different oral microorganisms.