Interesting, I just gave away a very expensive box of dried ginseng to my neighbor, I bought it from a Korean supermarket place a while back, but it ‘s too strong, we’re still healthy. I asked her this morning if she used the ginseng and if she’s ok, she said yes. She and her husband are in their 80s though.
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anyone growing Rhodiola Rosea?
I looked for plants a couple years back after failing with seeds.
Scott
@SoCalGardenNut — you can find “Top Grade Korean Wild Fresh” Ginseng root all over the web, with pictures like the one above.
Don’t be fooled by that… if the ginseng you buy looks like that… it was grown in cultivated bed, fertilized and sprayed with chemicals, especially fungicides.
When you grow ginseng in those conditions it looks much more like a Carrot than true wild ginseng.
Also notice the very short rhizome (root neck) at the top… each flat on the root neck, is 1 growing season… so that big fat carrot looking root is about 3 maby 4 years old at most.
In the wild roots do not get that big, in 3 or 4 years… more like 12-20 or more, unless just happen to be in very ideal location.
This image shows a 24 year old true wild root.
Each year the root neck develops a bud that becomes next years top and each fall when that top dies and breaks off the root neck, it makes a flat spot there… count the flats, to age the root.
That is one of the oldest roots I found in the past 20 years.
I have found them older before in the 75 year range… but no pictures.
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Thanks @TNHunter, I didn’t buy them off the web. I bought them at a Korean supermarket and they were already in a box. They were certified as true ginseng. I paid quite a bit amount of money at the time. But from WebMd, they do cause insomnia and that’s why my husband didn’t like them. We had a long commute, almost 3 hours each day, so I thought that they were helpful. Glad to get rid of the box and somebody found them useful.
@Barkslip … we drove thru a local city park this morning after Church… and I noticed this huge old post oak.
It is near 3 ft thick at the base… and has a hugh sprawling top.
All the limbs and leaves are too high to reach… but i could see just a few sparsley located acorns on it.
That is the largest post oak I have ever noticed around here. You may not be interested in acorns from a huge old tree like that… but of you are… we drive by it on a regular basis… and i could collect some after they drop.
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No (thank you), Trev.
I finally got ginseng growing after testing in several spots in my woods. Next to Black Cohosh just as they say. I planted the seeds that it produced this year.
I use Monarda or BeeBalm as a tea, known as Oswego tea, it was used by the native people in central NY as a medicinal tea. Works well for muscle cramping. The best tasting one is a hybrid called Plum, it’s absolutely delicious! The wild one is good as well but a bit more herb flavor.
@Rach … ginseng is a calcicole… so is maiden hair fern… bainberry… jack in pulpet, cohosh black and blue may also be calcicole… they are good pointers (indicators that ginseng may be near by).
In TN … IMO maidenhair fern is the best pointer… and a combination of maiden hair fern and bainberry… you almost always find seng nearby.
Also when you reach the level in elevation when traveling down a hollow where you can see limestone rock above ground… you are in the right spot.
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It seems from WebMd, there’s a difference between Korean Ginseng vs American Ginseng.
Ying / Yang…
Really good vid on all things ginseng.
He covers the difference in american vs asian seng early in the vid.
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I don’t know why the root shape makes a difference. Can one grow Korean Ginseng in American soil?
A small skinny man shaped root i found many years ago.
The emperor’s root is the one they go nuts over… some sell for thousands of dollars for the individual root.
They believe…
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I know where it’s found locally but that is a higher elevation, like you said, near limestone. I was trying it on my property where there is no maidenhair fern but some Black Cohash and it worked.
There is a patch of ginseng in northeast Alabama that I found 45 years ago. My grandmother showed me a single plant with berries and I wandered off into the woods and found this huge patch. We harvested roughly half the plants leaving 1 year and some 2 year plants. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has been back in there since. I might have to ask the owner for permission to go back in and take a look.
@Fusion_power … the most i ever dug in a single hunt (like 8am to 2 pm) was 3 pounds 1.5 oz).
Had my ginseng bag and fanny pack and pockets full.
I remember lots of nice patches over the years.
Started hunting it in 1976.
I don’t recall the exact amount from that patch, but it filled up 2 quart bags freshly harvested. The patch was about 300 feet across and probably had 2 or 3 thousand plants. Most were 1 year which we left in the ground. My grandmother carried it to her house and dried it and then sold it for us. We got a tad over $300 for what we harvested which was not bad in 1975.
Curious what the tallest tops you’ve ever found were. My grandfather, father, and numerous uncles were all avid Ginseng hunters during the 1970’s, give or take a decade or three… One uncle used to like to tell about stumbling into a patch he at first didn’t recognize as sang because the plants were almost shoulder high. Pretty sure the roots were impressive as well… Never seen any like that myself, a foot or so tall is far more common.
A neighbor acquired a number of mattress box springs years ago and put them in a nice spot on his property. Planted numerous seeds which grow up through the metal that remained. Deer nibble on everything around but won’t step into them and therefore leave the Ginseng alone. Thought that was a pretty good trick…
I pulled electric fence wire every 3 feet above my cowpeas one year when the deer were really bad. They wouldn’t go anywhere near it after the first time or two getting their noses nipped.
I’m not that much on ginseng, but the tallest plant I ever found was right at 3 feet tall, maybe a tad more. It was probably 30 years old. The biggest patch I found was the one described above that was about 300 feet across. There were stray plants all around that area, but the biggest and oldest were in the patch.
You realize this is kind of like fish tales? Now somebody has to come along and tell of a taller plant and a bigger patch…
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Of course, that’s just human nature 