TOPIC: A new grower here.

My mother's boyfriend has successfully grown ginseng and has a nice 15 year old patch. He is now in the beginning stages of getting the ground ready to plant two pounds. I'm really interested in growing and he is going to help me throughout the process. I'm now clearing an area and tilling just the top inch to make planting easier. I'm going to post pictures of the location next time I am in the area and can take pictures. I really hope these forums get more participation in the future. I'll do my best to post the progrress.

That sounds cool. I hear ya as to the site having more participation too. One thing to keep in mind with your planting. When it comes to selling your sang to a dealer, the highest price is for \"wild\" ginseng. What many of us grow is \"wild simulated\" ginseng. There is no way for anyone to tell the difference except if you show up at the dealer with roots you are saying are \"Wild\" and they are all the same age root. If you were digging true \"wild\" the age would vary quit a bit. So you want to plant throughout several year period, so when you harvest, you can harvest some from several different years or varying ages to get a better price. Just something to keep in mind.

Excellent advice. I'll keep that in mind. I've got 16 years of teaching left if I want to retire at 50. I plan on trying to do at least an acre a year with my brother. That should give about 6 years of variance. But that seems so far away.

When I get up north next I'll post some pictures of the location.

Chris, I don't know about you but for me, one of the hardest things about growing sang is to keep it quiet. Don't tell others what you are doing. I haven't lost any yet but, I have heard horror stories about people growing that just about the time they thought they had a good patch going, it went missing. All it takes is for one person to know it's value to find your patch. Also, when growing a lot like you are, especially if it is in close proximity, you may need to be careful about mold and fungus. There is a guy in Maryland, Larry Harding, who grows massive amounts of sang in the woods, but, he sprays a bunch of fungicides on to keep it healthy. You can do a search for Hardings ginseng and find his site on the web. Also an article written about his operation, by searching the \"million dollar root\".

I'm leaving Wednesday to go north to do some more tilling for four days. I'm beginning to woder if tilling the soil is the best way to go. It's a lot of work with my little Honda tiller.

I've found little information on the planting part of the process. The man I'm working with has suggested tilling and he has had success so that is what I am doing. When planting time comes I hope to try several different planting methods. ]

This may seem silly but I may buy some of these:
www.cleanairgardening.com/aeratorshoes.html

If the cleats were cut to the appropriate 1/2 inch depth it might work.

A person could follow behind me and plant the seed and cover them.

I do realize that the seeds need a bit of mulch/covering. Will the fall leaf drop be an adequate covering?

I've read that a layer of straw doesn't work well, but I've seen pictures of a famer online who uses it with success. Hardings? I don't remember.

I'm going to do a lot of experimenting and see what works best for me.

I have talked with Larry about planting some. He has used many methods too. One method several use is to rake the leaves back, scatter the seeds onto the ground and then rake the leaves back over the top. What Larry told me about tilling is to let a rain or two fall onto the tilled area before planting as the bed will need to \"firm up\" a bit before planting. He is claiming the ground is too soft as tilled and the seeds will end up too deep. He uses just enough straw to cover the ground, no more. He also says he has used a Earthway garden seeder with a Medium radish plate in it to plant sang and he claims it works well. I have had one of those for years so I may try it. The seed plate does need some modifying to fit the seeds.

Experimenting is pretty much the norm for this. If you find something that works, please let the rest of us know. Maybe it could work for us too.