Wasabi

[Gman]

Can anyone give me advice about growing wasabi?

i bought 3 plants of “wasabi japonica Mephisto green” cheap last year on a whim. Planted them outside in full shade where I cut the turf out and filled holes around plants with some gravel on advice of some video on the internet.

i then read about it and read that it is hard to farm, needs to be in a stream with very constant temperatures and just the right amount of shade and thought: oh well. Plants seemed to hang on just about until winter and then leaves were all gone and there was a foot of snow over the top of them.

i just found that all 3 plants have started shooting up leaves and seem to have rhizomes almost as thick as my thumb. Does this sound right? Do I have real wasabi, and can i harvest this now? Or have I been sold horseradish or something (which would be fine as well!). And if it’s this easy, why are there so many things on the internet saying it’s tricky to farm? Will mine just be rubbish quality?

cheers!

[ameno]

The roots want to be a couple inches across before you harvest them, so maybe next year. Also bear in mind when you do harvest them that you should eat the stuff within an hour of grating it, as once grated it loses its pungency very quickly.

As for telling whether you have wasabi or horseradish, the plants look almost nothing alike, so it shouldn't be hard to tell. Wasabi have round leaves borne on long stalks, whereas horseradish have long leaves, somewhat resembling dock.