Choosing Plants for Your Woodland Botanical Garden-Are You a Purist?

When we talk about shade medicinal herb gardens, I find there are two distinct groups of gardeners: those who will only use native medicinal plants and those who like to "mix it up a bit". As I wrote in the new home garden section of my book Growing and Marketing Ginseng, Goldenseal and Other Woodland Medicinals (you can order it by clicking on one of the "Add to Cart" buttons on the right sidebar of this blog) "As you make your shade garden plans, consider what kind of plants you want in it. Do you want to grow only native plants? Do you want mostly native plants with some exotics thrown in for color and interest? Do you want to plant only medicinal plants? What about designing a garden of medicinal and edible plants? Are you trying to create a particular garden that will need some specific trees and plants, such as Spanish moss hanging from tree limbs for a Southern garden ambiance? Don't take this all too seriously. Have fun. Collect plants from friends, festivals, and herbalists. If a plant is not a medicinal herb but you really like it, so what? Put it in your garden. And don't be afraid to make mistakes. You can always move plants!" 

Further along in that chapter, there are cautions about introducing invasive plants or potentially toxic plants, but I go on to describe a large number of medicinal herbs, vines, shrubs, small trees, big trees, ferns, berries, mosses, and non-medicinal plants to consider. The bottom line is this is your garden. You can make it whatever you want it to be. If you want it to look like a botanical garden with metal identification tags with common and scientific names in front of every plant, go for it. If you want it to be a whimsical fairy land with beautiful medicinal, edible, and decorative plants with gazing globes, a small waterfall, and wind chimes included, I love those, too. Gardening should bring us pleasure and make us smile-embrace it, have fun, and remember to share your pictures!

Growing Woodland Medicinals in the Home Garden

The 2014 revision of my book "Growing and Marketing Ginseng, Goldenseal, and Other Woodland Medicinals" has a whole new section devoted to home gardeners. Gardeners have always found the book useful for learning how to grow and propagate these beautiful native plants, but the new section provides detailed information on how to design the garden, choose the best plants, and make use of what you grow. What a great gift for the gardener in your family! Here is a short excerpt from the beginning of that section:

"When I first moved to western North Carolina to take my position with North Carolina State University, we lived in a little house nestled in the woods on an oversized lot in a small neighborhood. For ten years we tried to grow vegetables in a small clearing near the house without much success, but we also planted native medicinal herbs and ornamentals throughout the woods, and they flourished. Over the years we built walking paths through the woods and created habitat for different kinds of plants. There was an area under the dogwoods near the “forest edge” planted with galax and shortia. Behind it grew a patch of mayapple that quadrupled in size while we lived there. We planted bloodroot, ginseng, goldenseal, wild ginger, blue cohosh, ramps, sassafras (Sassafras albidum), and Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum). And I will never forget the excitement I felt when we discovered two pink lady’s slippers (Cypripedium acaule) growing in a corner of the lot far from our paths. We carefully guarded that area and watched for them to emerge each year.

My objective with this section is to help others create woodland medicinal herb gardens to enjoy with their families like we did. Woodland gardens fit well into busy lives, too. When properly established they will take care of themselves for the most part. Weeding is minimal and watering is usually only required in a drought. I have fond memories of walking the garden trails with my children looking for what had emerged or bloomed since we had last been through. My daughter, as young as four years old, always looked forward to finding the first “little brown jug” on the wild ginger plants each spring.

Keeping with the design of the previous two sections of the book I visited and interviewed six amazing gardeners. What a joy it was to spend a few hours with each of them. And then I was delighted when Scott said he wanted to add a chapter for growing ginseng in the home garden, too."

Where to Buy Seeds and Plants to Grow Your Own Ginseng, Goldenseal and Other Woodland Botanicals

The interest in growing ginseng, goldenseal, black cohosh, bloodroot, and ramps is greater than ever. I receive dozens of inquiries each week at work about them. Common questions this week have been "Where can I buy ginseng seeds?", "Who sells goldenseal rhizomes?", "Where can I buy shade cloth?", and "Where can I buy a root washer?" Because Scott Persons and I get so many of those questions, we put extnesive (although not exhaustive) resource lists in our book "Growing and Marketing Ginseng, Goldenseal and Other Woodland Medicinals". All of those listed are companies we have done business with or know personally.

Fall is a good time to plant and its not too late to get many of these plants and seeds into the ground. Just think, come spring you will have some of your own woodland medicinals growing!

If you are serious about growing woodland medicinal herbs, whether for a business or your own personal enjoyment, this is the book to have. Written by two well-know authorities, the book is chock full of information and hundreds of pictures on how to grow ginseng, goldenseal, ramps, black cohosh, and many other native herbs.

How to Get a Copy of the Book: We suggest you order the book through the publisher, New Society Publishers, or your favorite local book store; that way the authors can receive their full royalties. It is available in bookstores where native plant gardening is popular. You can order the book through all the big on-line discount book sellers. Many sellers offer the book on Ebay. The book is also available as an ebook through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, New Society Publishers, and elsewhere.

The book is a high-quality soft cover book with 508 pages. It has a center color photo section and black and white photos throughout. Here is detailed information about the book and a link to the table of contents.

A Very Early Snowfall at Our Tiny Farm

This is a photo from our farm on November 1. Beautiful, but I don't remember ever getting this much snow this early before. We had about three inches on the ground.

Forecasts are for a very snowy, icey, and cold winter. Fortunately, it was a good hay season and we were able to purchase and put up a big supply of high quality horse hay at a good price. Our final delivery of firewood arrives on Friday and the roundbales of hay for the cattle will arrive this weekend. The garlic is planted and mulched. There are lots of potatoes and squash in the cellar. I think we are in good shape!

The only problem is that little Chester REALLY does not like to walk in the snow.

Last Chance to Buy Our 2014 Garlic

It was a great year for growing garlic in the southern mountains of North Carolina. We've sold what we wanted to locally, have choice bulbs set aside for planting next year's crop, and have little baskets full for use by ourselves, family, and friends. So what you see above is all we have left to sell now!

People are telling me that locally grown planting and eating garlic is in short supply. Everyone is sold out. So tonight, I quickly put together some 3.75 to 4 lb packages of garlic and put them on Ebay for sale.

Here are direct links to the Ebay listings if you are interested: 
German White-SOLD OUT!

Spanish Roja-SOLD OUT!

Elephant Garlic-SOLD OUT!

Manure is Worth its Weight in Gold. Want Some?

Even with the best manure management plans, on a little farm like ours sometimes you just have to get out there with a fork and wheelbarrow and pick the stuff up. But that "stuff" is worth its weight in gold to farmers and gardeners in the know. It can turn poor soil into rich, fertile, friable, fragrant, good gardening soilwithin a year or two. You will see a noticeable difference the first year you use it. We incorporate manure into all of our vegetable, herb, and flower gardens and feel blessed to have an endless supply at our disposal.

In my opinion, manure has gotten a bad rap in recent years. All the concerns about food safety have driven many gardeners and some organic farmers away from using manures. Following some simple guidelines, manures can be used safely and can be most beneficial to your growing efforts. And think about it, if we don't return animal manure to the soil where it belongs, what the heck are we going to do with all that we generate?

At the present time, we are not composting our manure, so we follow the federal National Organic Program rules for using manure in growing our food and flowers: "The NOP regulations require that uncomposted animal manures be applied at least 90 days prior to harvest for crops whose edible portions do not come in contact with the soil and at least 120 days prior to harvest of crops whose edible portions do come in contact with the soil." We feel very comfortable following these rules because we generate all the manure here on our own farm and we know what our animals eat. Our animals live on grass pasture most of the year. Our one senior horse is fed some additional grain because he can no longer eat enough grass and hay to keep his weight up. But his grains contain no antibiotics or hormones. The hay we purchase for winter feed comes from local farms. We know the farmers and we always ask what herbicides they use so we can avoid persistent herbicides that could carry over into the manure.

Most of us who have been farming and gardening for a lot time know how to handle manure and composted manure products. If you are a new gardener, please remember you are handling 'poop'. So you should wear gloves, cover any wounds on your hands, wash your hands when you are done, and keep your dirty hands out of your mouth. Follow these simple rules and you should be able to safely use manures for growing your food as many, many generations of people have done before us.

So, do you want some? For the first time this year we have more manure than we can use. If you would like some, FOR FREE, and you are within an easy drive of Etowah, NC, just use the contact form on the right to let me know and we will make arrangements for you to get some. This is a good time of year to apply it.

Celebrating Our Artist-Shannon Davis

Our daughter is an artist who is officially launching her career this fall. What a great time to buy beautiful original prints, ceramics, and paintings for holiday gifts. Young artists charge very reasonable prices as they start their careers. So you can support an emerging artist and get a great deal in the process. That's when I like to purchase their art! You can also visit her website: Shannonmade.com.

This weekend, she is selling some of her work at the Blue Ridge Community College booth in front of the old courthouse at the Art on Main event in downtown Herndersonville, NC. These photos are from that event.