Mountain Rose Herbs
We visit the Pennsylvanian forest farmers cultivating a new way forward for their prized local botanicals, allowing us to provide organic North American ginseng that supports the ecology and economy of this unique region.In Pennsylvania’s lush, green Appalachian foothills, our North American ginseng thrives. It’s here in these undulating woodlands that Randy has tended our certified organic and forest grown ginseng for more than 30 years.
Randy’s eyes light up. “Oh, lookey there,†he says. Using the pointy end of his makeshift metal digger—a tool his 'seng hunting business partner Cliff crafted from an old golf club—Randy tenderly pushes aside thorny blackberry brambles to uncover a ginseng plant shooting up against a disintegrating sugar maple log. Randy believes the calcium these two symbiotic botanicals release into the soil helps the ginseng thrive. Other valued woodland botanicals coexist with the ginseng too—black cohosh, Solomon’s seal, goldenseal, and poke root grow wild in these woods.
On this overcast autumn day, the ginseng plant’s showy red berries hang below its distinctive five-lobed leaves. Randy carefully removes the berries, which he will bury in a bucket of sand for eight months underground so that the seeds can germinate at a consistent 50° Fahrenheit. Whenever he digs, Randy brings the prior season’s seeds with him, placing 20 in the ground for each root harvested. Not every seed will be successful, but this methodology ensures at least one new root will take hold. Randy and Cliff have planted literally millions of seeds in the decades they’ve been forest farming.
The leaves are now past their prime, but in the summertime, Randy and Cliff will snip off three of the five leaves from select plants scattered across the forest floor. The ginseng leaves offer a way to enjoy the herb’s beneficial properties without harming the whole plant.
Randy and Cliff wait to collect the roots until after the leaves have begun to yellow. The changing colors (or “senescenceâ€) signal that the nutrients are no longer concentrated in the leaf and have moved down into the root. Randy waits at least seven years before pulling up these slow-growing roots. Having tended these lands for decades, Randy knows his property intimately. He tracks the age of his plants based on age-related signs like the number of growth rings that encircle the neck of each root.
After harvest, Randy hand-cleans the harvested ginseng in fresh, local spring water in his home at the base of his ginseng-dotted hills. After cleaning, he lays the roots on a drying screen and slides them into his homemade dryer. The leaves take just six hours to dry, but the root dries for seven to ten days.
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