TOPIC: Spring planting

I've seen where this site and others are selling seed for spring planting. Will the seed up this year? If so, has anyone had much success at planting in the spring?

mhowa

I heard of some planting in the spring, but have not heard anyone on here speak of success or failure. I have always planted mine in the Fall.

I suppose the benefits are: seeds have less time between sowing and emergence to dry out. And the rodents don't have all winter to eat up the seeds.

You will need to get busy if your planning to plant this spring. In your area I suppose the seeds germinate pretty early.

Perhaps theres someone that can share their success in spring planting with us.

Good luck!

classicfur

mhowa,

I planted 3 nice spots this evening and took a pic of a couple of them - showing below.

I plan to keep on planting until perhaps mid March.

We have had a string of very nice days here (up in the mid 60's getting close to 70 at times) and man it sure feels like spring is just around the corner.

My bradford pear tree the buds are swelling and my grape vine buds are starting to swell too.

I am starting to see some little peaks of green stuff in the woods and saw some new mushrooms today - looked like they just poped out over night.

I am sure we will still have some cold weather and very likely will get more snow but this week has sure made me start looking forward to spring.

TNhunter

Here is one of the other beds I planted this afternoon.

PS - I did some planting in early fall and one thing I can tell you about spring planting is that the ground sure works up a lot easier in the winter or spring months. I planted some back in January too and right after a snow melts off (and after a freeze and thaw of the ground) man it sure works up nice and easy with nothing but a leaf rake.

TNhunter

TN, nice planting bed. I was in Zanesville Ohio today planting as well. It was 67 degrees out today and I worked up a god sweat. I used your modified technique today. I did my normal rake and scatter method as many of us do. However, I added the extra step to use the leaf rake to bring some soil to the sideline of the entire length of the bed.
I put in 1 pound today. It took me from 10 AM till 12:30 PM. The added step only added about a half hour to my planting. I walked up and down the beds a little more than normal and I think all those little steps up and down up and down and then some, really gave the seeds good contact to the soil.
Then I was able to rake some of the soil via the Tnhunter Modified method back onto the ginseng beds which added a little bit of dirt on top of the seeds before I raked the leaves back onto the beds.
As far a spring planting some think it is great, and say they have great results. I prefer late fall and decent winter days myself. Here is the picture of my ginseng bed below. It's going to be a good producer. It's in a woods that I have already planted in before and the other beds with ginseng babies are doing well so this one should be a good one too.
Latt

This is what the ginseng planting beds should look like when you are finished to anyone that is new at this. This is the same bed once completed as the picture in my post above after it is finished. Other than the leaves being a little fluffed up, it looks natural and most people would not even know this site was planted earlier.
Latt

About 15 years ago I bought 10lbs of seed in the late fall and could not plant all the seeds.I put the remaining seeds in a wheelborrow with damp sand mixed in. I was hoping to plant the rest in the spring but by the end of April the seeds sprouted in the sand and all I could do was spread the rest on the hill. I still had fun and yes the ginseng bug bit me! That summer I cleared 10 acres of under growth on our north east slope and borrowed money from my 401k and planted 300 lbs of seed in three months. Our whole family helped and we lived in the woods. Crazy ? Yes . I should write a book.

Mike01,
Holy smoke 300 lbs of seed. Please tell us more. How long ago did you plant the 300 lbs? Was it 15 years ago? How is your crop doing? Have you harvested any yet. Anything you can share would be great to hear.

Here is the same ginseng bed looking from the bottom upward to the top of the woods that I posted. It was on a 10 to 15% grade.
Latt

Well starting from the begining my 10 and 12 year old son's wanted to buy a dozen traps that fall and asked me for help in there quest. being a good father much like my father, I told them that they would have to earn the money! we began to brainstorm ideas for raising the money needed and I remembered the ginseng shown to me on our hill while cruising timber with a forester. I whipped out the enclopedia and found a picture of ginseng to show the boys and also myself because it been quite a while since I had seen it. Up the hill we marched not a clue if I could find it again. While scanning the ground my oldest son found the first plant and the boys and I found about three pounds. We washed all the dirt off and even scrubbed some of the roots clean(big mistake). We dried the roots on top of fridge with newspaper under the roots. later that fall we took the root to a local dealer that advertised in the moneysaver paper. I thought the boys would make close to $100.00 but when the dealer offered us $460.00 for about 1 pound of root, I was dumb founded and I said what did you say? He responed that the roots were of good quality and age. The dealer then asked me where we dug the roots and I told him up on our hill and he said you shoud be growing it up there. Shayaa and I asked how do you grow it. Well I bought a book on growing and ten pounds of seed from the dealer.Yes the boys also bought a dozen traps. That's how it all began

Latt,

That is some nice looking woods you are planting there some big mature trees and fairly open woodsland floor.

Woods like that would make it easy to lay out some nice long beds and like you are doing with multiples running side sy side.

Getting a pound planted in that short of time is Great.

I tend to make my beds smaller - generally 4-5' wide then as long as I can get them without having to clear out a bunch of saplings.
Most of my beds are in the 40 to 50' long range - some a bit shorter in thicher areas and some longer (got just a few 100 & 80'long too).

I planted 1/4 pound of seed yesterday in those 3 beds and have another 1/4 lb of seed I am going to get out this morning and finish up planting.

Mike - great story about the need for some traps getting you and your sons out there digging seng togethere - and wonderful that that pound of seng provided the traps and seed for getting started with your own planting.

Best of Luck with the Trapping and Senging.

TNhunter