TOPIC: Another pound of seed ordered...

Man the board has sure been slow lately...

Our forcast for most of next week is sunny with highs in the mid 50's lows in the mid 30's.

I ordered another pound of seed today - this time from Hardings.

I got 4 more nice beds cleared of saplings and marked off last Saturday morning - will be scratching around and dropping seed again soon.

It is supposed to snow tomorrow and get cold for a few days then warm up again for next week.

The ground should be real nice for planting then.

TNhunter

TNhunter

I've bought rootlets from Hardings in the past. They have always been very generous with sending about 15-20% more roots than what I ordered.

Their seeds are kind of on the spendy side, $120 a pound.

I was curious whether you have talked to these people you've ordered seeds from this winter. About how they are storing the seeds during the winter months? Do they store them in a cool cellar, refrigerator or do they dig them out of a stratification box every time someone orders seeds during the winter months? Just wondering how the pros store seeds over the winter.

Thanks,
classicfur

TNhunter,
I have bought seed from Larry Harding for the past 4 years. The seed I planted in the fall of 2009 came up great and out performed other seed that I planted in the same area. It came up this past spring 2010 and I had a blanket of Green. I did not notice any evidence of any of them dying off. They were all very hardy ginseng babies. I went to the same ginseng planting bed this past weekend and dug 15 one year old (Hardings) roots grown from seed to see how they looked. The one year old rootlets are all about 1 1/2 in to 2 1/2 inch long with a nice growth bud on them. The majority are splitting nicely and taking on wild root characteristics even at this early age. I have transplanted the 15 rootlets indoors in a large tupperware container that is 2 foot wide and 3 foot long and 10'' deep. I filled it with woods soil and composted soil and even put in a 10 % grade to simulate a slope. Then I planted the roots at an angle about 1 1/2 inch deep. They should come up real soon so it will be interesting to see how they do indoors. Never had much luck planting indoors thou but never have tried 10year old rootlets. If they do well indoors it will be enjoyable to watch them grow.
I am sure you will not be disappointed in the seed.
Good luck.
Latt

I meant 1 year old rootlets not 10 year old rootlets.
Latt

TNhunter, are you running out of room to plant seeds? Man, you're going to town planting them. Last year, I planted a little over a pound of seed. That was my first time planting, and I want to see how they do. If I'm successful, I'll probably get aggressive like you did this fall. I hope planting during all that dry weather last year doesn't hurt me. Hope everyone is staying warm!

Latt

Planting Rootlets indoors, sounds like fun! Your snow must be about gone. We still have about 2 1/2 feet of snow still on the ground.

I do have three 5 yr old seng growing in pots under my deck on the east side of my house. They have done well. This will be their third year under my deck, and they seem to emerge about two weeks before the seng in the woods. I enjoy checking them out!

Thats a good sign to see your one year roots splitting and looking wild after one year of growth. I've inspected hundreds of one yr old roots over the last several years and they all tend to look wild. And some actually split off in three different directions. It's fun to check on their progress.

Good luck on indoor seng!
classicfur

Hey Guys,

Well that snow they were predicting started a little while ago and the ground is already covered and white here - looks like we may get a few inches from this one.

Classicfur - on how the pro's store the seed - I have wondered that same thing myself but don't know the answer.

I sort of doubt they leave the seed in the stratificatoin box or bag and did em up when they sell them - that would not be very convienient if you are selling seed all of the time. I bet they have some nice way to store them indoors, in a cool place, monitoring mositure and conditions.

I acaully talked to Larry Harding on the phone the other day and intended to ask him a bunch of questions (including that one) but he is a BIG talker and was sharing a lot of good info with me and I basically ran out of time (on my lunch hour) and had to cut it short and did not get to ask all the questions I wanted.

If I get to talk to him again I will try and get that question in.

Latt - glad you had good results with the Hardings seeds - hope I do too. They were a bit costly but I want to try seed from different sources and diversify that some and I have seen others here mention Hardings favorably. Good Luck on your indoor growing project.

Jacquo - not running out of room yet. I am actually going to split this pound 50/50 with a friend so I will only be planting 8 oz of it myself.

That will get me up to 59 oz for the year around 3.7 lbs.

I sort of have a goal of getting 5 lbs planted before spring and think I may just make that.

I have about 13 years left until planned retirement and I figure if I can plant around 5 lbs of seed each year for the next 13 years - well that should help out a little in retirement.

I got stocks, bonds, cash accumulating, own quite a bit of land (230 acres and a home) and working on \"Ginseng\" now. Now that is what I call a truly diversified portfolio

Have a great evening all and stay warm.

TNhunter

Hey another thing to mention...

My friend that I am splitting this pound of seed with - he asked if I would come down to his place and look around and help him pick out some good places to try planting ginseng and I did that last weekend.

He has a real nice north/north-east facing hillside not far from his home that is loaded with fern and I even found some small remnants of maidenhair fern on it and the timber is mixed hardwoods but has a lot of poplar and sugar maples too. He had some guys down there a few years ago for a dove hunt in one of his fields and one of them (a friend of his) went off in the woods for a hour or two and came out with a nice wad of ginseng.

I think he has a good place there to grow some seng. I suggested a soil test and we talked about planting methods and I helped him out as much as I could and will continue that as I learn more myself.

While we were out there he took me up to a knob on the end of a ridge there and showed me some real old graves he found there. This is just out in the midst of the woods and the hill is covered with big trees now.

On one of the graves there was a carved stone that had some writing on it and we made out a female name and she was Born 1857, Died 1885. It mentioned her being a loving mother and devoted Christian.

Think that made her 28 years old. I wondered if she died that young giving birth but there was no mention of that on the stone.

There were something like 4-5 other graves there but all of the other stones were un-marked.

Right beside the womans grave there is a huge white oak tree and while we were there I mentioned how hard it would be to dig a grave there with all of the tree roots that must be in that area, but then we realized in 1885 those trees may not have even been there near the graves - that was 126 years ago.

Anyway - just something interesting we ran into while out scouting for seng planting places on his farm.

TNhunter

TNhunter and anyone else interested.
Here is a newer video at the link below featuring Larry Harding talking a bit about ginseng.



Thanks,
Latt

TNhunter, about the graves you came across, here in Indiana, I guess it was a common thing back in the 1800's and early 1900's to have family burial plots on a farm. A lot of people around here that do family research run into dead ends because family members aren't in cemetaries, but are buried on land that sometimes isn't in the family anymore. They either can't get on the land to do research, or they have lost track of the family members because of time.

About the age of the deceased lady, I have some thoughts about that as well. I have family members that are on the board of a local cemetary where I live, and I get involved with them from time to time, so I get to see some things a lot of folks won't notice. It looks like back in the 1800's, if a couple wanted to have three children live to adulthood, they would almost have to have four or five to make sure it happened. The oldest section of the local cemetary is full of infant graves. It's amazing how far medicine has come in 100+ years.