Takinogawa Long

Mild, earthy, bittersweet flavor with a pleasant earthy aroma; crisp flesh used in kinpira, soups, pickles, and ramen.

Long slender taproots roughly 1-3 ft (often 12-48 in) with thin skin and crisp white flesh; large broad fuzzy first-year leaves, bolting to a tall branching plant with magenta thistle-like blooms in the second year.

Grow in deep, loose, well-drained soil to allow the long roots to develop; open-pollinated biennial usually grown as an annual for the root, with roots dug in fall (and the winter-hardy first-year root can be left and dug into winter).