TOPIC: Exceptional Growing Season

Hey Guys

As the growing season is getting close to the end. My plants have done very well this season. The weather was perfect this year.

I had slug problems in the spring, but for the most part, my plants made it through looking healthy and without disease.

I did have a Moose that wondered through some of my beds and crippled a few plants. But I think most of those will come up next spring. And I'm sure the turkies ate their share of berries too.

I harvested a bunch of seeds from my five year olds and a small amount from four and three year olds. This is the first year that I had quite a few three yr olds that had 2-4 berries per plant. The weather must have been just right for them this year.

I figure I will have between 22 to 24 thousand seeds from all the berries I harvested. So I will try my hand at stratifying for the first time. I hope I can succeed at that. I guess I will find out when I plant them next fall and hopefully they will emerge in spring of 2013.

Overall, we had a pretty good growing season up north.

classicfur

Here is a couple of three year olds with berries this year!

Classicfur,

Congrats on a good season and some nice looking berries there.

22-24K sure sounds good. You will not have to buy seed much longer.

I heard from someone the other day that HSU, who I think you get seed from, ran out of seed fast this year. Were out already.

We had just the opposite down here in middle TN.

Our month of June was nice, but then July and August thru to around Sept 4 we just had almost no rain and extreme heat.

The June rain made lots of plants set berries, but then the July and August heat and dry made most of the drop those berries (many while still green) and many plants dried up and died with green berries still on.

I am hoping that we will have a much better year next year.

Good Luck to you on the stratifying !

TNhunter

looking good.

TNhunter

Amazing how different the weather has been across the country. Heat and drought down in the south and yet up north our summer was milder. We did have less rain this summer. I think most summers we get too much rain. I know there was less slugs this year.

That's interesting that Hsu has ran out of seeds already. He mentioned in his catalog that orders should be placed by Aug 15 because of short supply. They must know how much seeds they have on hand in order to stop accepting orders for seeds. They told me that they would start shipping seeds the first week of Sept. I told them to ship my seed order on Sept 26 so that I can start planting around the 1st of Oct.

I think this might be the year that we see that there is a real shortage of seeds to meet the demands of everyone's needs.

On stratifying seeds, I guess the thing I'm most concerned about is finding the perfect spot to bury them in the ground. Now its time for me to learn someting new.

Thanks

ckassicfur

classicfur,
Overall I think our growing season was pretty good up until the lack of rain and heat recently. We have a much longer growing season than up north but if it dries up the way it did then it doesn't do us any good.My first year plantings have been down for about two weeks now but heck, they emerged in the middle of March so that was a little over five months of growth for them. I really hated to see them go haha. Its pretty nice when I have time to just get away from everything and go check on them, but now is the time to start planning and planting for more. Good luck with your seed.


Hillhopper

Hillhopper

Yes, it is amazing that the root can grow in two complete different climates.

Here is an interesting thing I read from Kim Pritts Ginseng book:

\"Plants in the southern range will sprout earlier and die down later than plants in the northern range because of the greater number of frost free days in the south. There is little correlation, however, between the number of frost-free days and the actual growth of the ginseng root. Roots grow best in cool soil, and the long, hot summer days of the south actually inhibit root growth. The cooler weather of the northern states allows the ginseng root to maintain slow but steady growth right through the summer. Roots from southern states tend to grow rapidly for a few weeks in the spring and then level off throughout the warmer months with little appreciable weight gain. Northern and southern roots both show a growth spurt after the berries ripen.\"

So it sounds like in the south the roots grow quick in the early months of the season and then taper off during the hot months.

Thanks,

classicfur

Hillhopper

I wanted to add.

I bet that the growth buds develope in an earlier month of the season in the south, than in the north.

classicfur

classicfur,
They do. I would dig a couple to check every month, at the end of May the growth buds were substantial and by the the end of June through the first half of July Im satisfied the first year plants could have lost there tops and still made it to emergence next year.

Hillhopper

congrats on the great growing year! I hope to post6 - one day- a similar post!