well we're progressing through fall now
uh we've had a lot of long days here
trying to get some of the field work
done in the clips that you'll see in
this video here now we'll have some of
the clips of harvesting the seed
the planting and things like that so
that will be upcoming after this segment
here
uh we also have been getting a lot of
calls from people wondering when we'll
have wild ginseng available the wild
ginseng
even though i love to go on and harvest
that we just don't have time to get out
and dig any of the wild ginseng so for
the wild ginseng we will purchase it
from people that go out in the woods
here in wisconsin and it's all from
wisconsin and dig the wild ginseng
they'll bring it to us and then we
purchase it from them we always like to
buy the wild ginseng if possible fresh
or undried and then we go ahead and take
care of the drying portion of it we
actually just took some of the first
roots out of the dry the small dryer
that we have for wild ginseng yesterday
so
wild ginseng is now available and
there's a few items that are listed on
the website right now here's some of the
roots that came in today from one of the
diggers and as you can see
while ginseng doesn't get near as big as
cultivated ginseng does even though it's
a lot older
and these here are some very nice wild
ginseng roots you can see the neck on
them which kind of determines the age of
the wild ginseng rut the wrinkle on them
and things like that so these roots will
go ahead and we'll put them in a
refrigerator for a week and a half to
two weeks just like we do with the
cultivated ruts and that way we just get
a better dry on them
so like i said the wild ginseng is now
going to be available on the website we
started shipping a little bit today
already
with the wild ginseng everything needs
to be certified by a warden from the
department of natural resources so the
batch that went in the dryer about a
week ago
we actually had the ward down here and
he certified everything as wild ginseng
growing in wisconsin here so with the
wild ginseng that you receive you'll
receive a copy of that certificate of an
origin stating that it's wild ginseng
that was harvested here in wisconsin so
like i said in the upcoming clips now
we'll go ahead and take a little bit of
the look at the seed harvesting
i didn't get out there in time when we
had the big crew harvesting so there was
just a small ball left you'll see how we
harvest the seed and then we'll go ahead
and we'll take some clips of the
planting process
like i said with some pretty long days
well we just about got all the seed
picked i didn't get time to film the day
we were picking a lot of it there we had
storms coming and we were kind of a rush
so we just got a little bit left here
that we're finishing up on as you can
see it's it's a very tedious hand
process
all the berries are picked by hand we
usually just use a kettle so that we can
just go right under the seed here so it
doesn't fall on the ground and you can
see the clumps of seed here now the
berries are all ripe
earlier in the year we showed as they
were blossoming and then as they were
developing
so if you take one of these berries here
and we break it open
most of the berries are going to have
usually two seeds in it so you can
actually see the seed right there is one
the other seed is right here um we'll go
ahead and we'll go ahead and we'll do
what we call the pulping it whereas
we'll we'll put it through a machine
that takes the the pulp or the the red
berry off and all we're left with is the
seed and then we'll go ahead and wash it
so as you can see here
here's a nice clump of berries right
here
that's a there's probably on a clump
like that there's probably going to be
25 or 30 seeds in there so one plant can
produce a lot of seed when it has quite
a bit some plants don't have any others
will have you know here's another nice
clump of seed
um so that just gives you an idea here
we we've got the rest of the garden
picked right here now so we've got more
than enough seed that we'll need for
next year this seed as i mentioned in
earlier clips
will actually go into
the seed boxes now we'll mix it with
sand and then that is the seed that we
will plant next fall as i mentioned
earlier it takes 18 months for ginseng
seed to germinate so we put it in buying
sand and store it for one year and what
we call the stratification process and
then the seed that we will plant next
fall
is this seed that we harvested now
in a clip a little bit later you're
going to see us planting the gardens
that seed that we were planting at that
point was a seed that was harvested last
fall and it was in sand all summer uh
through the previous winter in this
summer and then we plant it and that'll
come up the following fall
so like i said um we'll go ahead and
we'll have some clips now of doing some
planting and things like that
well we've had a long day today we
started planting a little after five
this morning
and a little after five right now so
we're uh
just going through and we're spreading
the straw and we've got a little bit
more to plant and
it wasn't supposed to be much wind today
but the wind picked up so we're just
waiting until the wind dies down to
hopefully finish this evening
so what you'll see in the next few clips
here we'll have some shots of us plowing
the beds
and then we'll go ahead and you'll see
the planter seating and i'm not sure
you're going to get a picture of the
clip of the shredder going it's just my
brother and myself down here tonight so
with one driving the tractor and one
putting straw in there i'm not sure who
can do the videoing but as you can see
we got this garden done today
started actually last night
the other small one down there and then
like i said we just have one small one
left hopefully this evening we'll be
able to finish that up
as you can see the uh
from the previous clip you see where the
posts were in
you can now see the beds here that are
formed and we went ahead and we put the
ginseng seed into the ground here and
then covered it with straw
so like i said that straw will help to
protect that seed from drying out
especially through the fall ginseng seed
if it dries out will actually kill it
so what we'll do now is like i said
we'll get a couple clips maybe of uh
beds
and maybe breaking the beds and seeding
the ginseng
and then we'll see once if we can
somehow get a clip of the shredder but
i'm not sure that'll happen
so
you