Elijah,
If you grow seng from seed in tilled soil the roots will grow and look more like carrot roots - straight and slick. Roots like that (cultivated ginseng) sells for a fraction of the price of wild seng. Out in a open (sunny) garden area you would also have to provide artificial shade.
The soil would need to be rich in calcium. Per Scotts book seng does best in soil where the calcium level is up in the 4000-5000 lbs per acre range. If you have soil that is high in calcium & other minerals ginseng may grow just fine there. If not you may have to supplement the calcium by adding something like gypsum, or rock chips or both to the soil.
www.wildgrown.com/index.php/Ginseng-Foru...d-Producing-Bed.html
You might want to check out the post above (by me) on establishing a ginseng seed producing bed.
Instead of working up a ginseng bed out in a sunny garden area - if you have a spot on the north or north/east side of your house where you could put a bed in that should work fairly well. Just observe the shade conditions around your home. You may have a location there that gets a few hours of morning sun but then is shaded by the house the rest of the day. In a spot like that you may not even need to put up any artificial shade.
On the north side of my house I have a area like that. It is that side of the house where the snow melts last.
I think I will put me in a little bed there and just see if I can grow some seng there. You could put in a couple of those nice japanese lace leaf maples and then under them plant some ginseng (could transplant some wild roots in and plant some seed, perhaps some other wild stuff like maidenhair fern, blood root, cohosh, star-root (false unicorn) and have your own little wild plant spot growing there.
It would probably be best to bring in some woods top soil, and get some of that rocky soil (like in my post above) and you could also mulch it with hard maple leaves, poplar leaves (which are good sources of calcium).
Best of Luck !
TNhunter
