Ready for fall planting

Stratified American Ginseng Seeds for Planting – Appalachian Grown

For centuries, ginseng has been treasured in the hardwood forests of Appalachia. Now you can plant your own.

Our stratified American ginseng seeds (Panax quinquefolius) have already gone through their first winter. Plant them this fall and they'll sprout this spring. Grow your own ginseng and stop worrying about Virginia's wild harvest season.

Sizes & Prices

Size	Approx. seeds	Price
½ oz	~100 seeds	Orh100Ginseng $5.95
2 oz	~600 seeds	Orh18lbGinseng $29.99
4 oz (¼ lb)	~1,200 seeds	Orh14lbGinseng $39.99
8 oz (½ lb)	Bulk	Orh12lbGinseng $69.99

Supply is limited. Once these are sold out, we won't have more until next fall. Buy in our store, or order online for fast shipping.

Growing Ginseng from Seed

Ginseng is a unique and rewarding plant to grow, but it takes patience and the right conditions.

Why Fall Planting Matters

Ginseng seeds need two cold periods (below 45°F for about 90 days each) before they sprout. This is called stratification. Our seeds have already gone through their first winter. Plant them this fall and they'll complete the second cold period naturally and sprout in the spring.

Seed straight off a wild plant takes about 18 months to come up. The old-time diggers in Foxfire 3 all said so. Our stratified seed has already done half of that waiting.

Choosing the Right Location

In the wild, ginseng grows in shady hardwood forests, often under yellow-poplar or maple trees. It prefers well-drained soil, because standing water can kill the roots. Ideal sites offer about 70% shade. A little underbrush usually means there's just enough filtered sunlight for ginseng to thrive.

Old sang hunters also looked for black walnut, basswood (they called it "lind") and cucumber trees, on north- and east-facing slopes and in dark, damp coves. "You find some walnut out in the woods, start looking for ginseng," Buck Carver said. Good neighbor plants include maidenhair fern, blue cohosh, and goldenseal, which they called "the little brother of the ginseng."

How to Plant

1. Rake back the leaves in your chosen spot.
2. Scatter the seeds on the soil surface.
3. Press them in lightly, no deeper than ¼ inch.
4. Cover the seeds back up with leaves to keep them from drying out and to hide them from rodents.

"You've got to plant them just barely under the ground and then throw the leaves on there." — Buck Carver, Foxfire 3. He learned it the hard way, after planting 104 berries too deep and not getting a single plant.

What to Expect

• First year: seedlings come up with three leaves, about 2–3 inches tall.
• Ginseng grows slowly and usually takes 5–10 years to reach maturity.
• Keep mulch on the ground to control weeds and protect the roots each winter.

Planting ginseng is a long-term project, but for many growers the patience pays off in a valuable and fascinating crop.

Wisdom from the Old Sang Hunters

In the Appalachians, ginseng is "sang," and hunting it is "sanging." The mountain diggers interviewed in Foxfire 3 had a lifetime of know-how. Here's some of the best of it.

Telling a plant's age

Count the prongs. A first-year plant has 3 leaves, then it becomes a 2-prong, then a 3-prong, and eventually a 4-prong. The old-timers got a truer age by counting the notches on the "age stem," the knobby neck on top of the root, where each year's stalk grew and fell off. Some roots they dug were 15–20 years old or more.

Fall color

After the first frost, ginseng turns a gold you can spot from across the woods. Diggers said it was a different shade of yellow from anything else in the forest.

Wild-grown roots bring more

In Foxfire 3, dealers paid almost double for wild roots over cultivated ones. The diggers' advice was to plant in the woods, skip the fertilizer and leave it alone. Today that's called wild-simulated growing.

Cold doesn't hurt it

"It won't freeze out," said Lawton Brooks. Even in the coldest north-facing coves, it comes back every spring.

Drying

It takes about 5 pounds of fresh root to make 1 pound of dried.

The sang hunter's code

Dig only in fall, after the berries turn red. Never dig anything smaller than a three-prong. Always plant the berries back where you found them, so there's more sang in a year or two.

Quotes and lore from Foxfire 3, edited by Eliot Wigginton (Anchor Books).

Ginseng Seed FAQ