Horseradish Management

Hi Sara - One thing you might be interested in is that horseradish is also a member of the dock family, just like rhubarb is. I ought to look up the scientific name so I could tell you all about it, but for now we'll just talk about horseradish.
You've pointed out the biggest problem with horseradish, or with any dock, which is that it spreads. It gets much bigger than you thought it was going to. Don't feel bad about keeping it under control, because that is the only solution. You can give some away, or just dig some up and throw it away. When we dig ours in the spring, we usually dig some extra to give away. We have one row about 15 feet long and it's always full of plants. It started out with about 3 little plants, and we certainly don't need all that we have now. Good luck with it.

It's been wonderful to finally have some nice weather in our area. The last several days have been in the 60's F and breezy and mostly sunny. Now the soil feels dry! Dad plowed the garden over the weekend and he also plowed under what was left of our old asparagus. Today he's going to plant lettuce, spinach and radishes. We've already had some Belgian onions, which also got caught by the plow.
My garden helper, Cathy, came over on Saturday and we worked in the big garden in the yard for 2 hours. I have lots of grape hyacinth all over the place, so we cleaned out some of that to give some of the bigger plants more space. We also made up some pots of plants for a plant sale coming up in a couple of weeks.
On Sunday I mostly worked in the raspberries. The raspberries have a long history at our house, including being wiped out in 1995 by a huge storm that toppled a big willow tree right onto them. We got them replanted by fall that year, but still had the rows too close to each other. They had previously been in one large patch, and we'd wade into it to pick - not the best situation, so rows were good, but we underestimated the space needed. Anyway, they've been reduced to two rows, which has helped, and I was cleaning out the garlic mustard, one of the scourges of Central NY. And I was pruning as I went along, which should have been done in March! Our next door neighbor (1/2 mile away) has a very nice raspberry patch, where they used to have a pick-your-own operation. It is so perfect and neat you wouldn't believe it. Little gravel rows, each plant just there in its own space, no weeds in sight. I bet they just groan and shake their heads when they drive by our house and see our raspberries. Still, it looks good to me, and whenever I work in the the raspberries I think I could make a life out of doing that and never go back to the office again. DK