Intro music: Beautiful Medicine chant

Plants & Their Friends with Robert Eidus originally aired on WART 95.5 FM.

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6 videos

Growing forest medicinal and decorative plants as nursery stock for market sale can often be more profitable than selling just the root. We take a look at the process of growing and transplanting seedlings for market sale with Robert Eidus, owner of Eagle Feather Organic Farm, and we review the importance of knowing your market and creating a business plan beforehand.

Provided courtesy of Forest Farming. Find them on YouTube at www.youtube.com/channel/UCA-ZP07pEpCzWuGGeI1veWQ

In this video, we take a look at the annual Asheville Herb Festival where 60+ vendors come out to sell their fruit trees, vegetable plants, and medicinal herbs. Robert Eidus, owner of Eagle Feather Organic Farm, Joe Hollis from Mountain Gardens, and several other organic herbalists are in attendance. This video provides a glimpse of the market place and can give budding herbalists an idea of how to market their products. We also discuss the importance of reseeding these plants that are often over-harvested from the wild. Forest farming these medicinal herbs helps to ensure a sustainable supply for public consumption.

Provided courtesy of Forest Farming. Find them on YouTube at www.youtube.com/channel/UCA-ZP07pEpCzWuGGeI1veWQ

Robert Eidus explains how to transplant ginseng seedlings with minimum irritation to the plant. These seedlings are sold at the Asheville Herb Festival. Forest grown medicinal herbs can be sold as dry product, seedlings, rootlets, or as value-added products. When sold as a seedling, as pictured in this video, the plant should only be contained in a pot for a month at most. Ginseng seedlings do not fare well if left in plastic pots for too long. The seedlings should be kept moist and in shade.

Provided courtesy of Forest Farming. Find them on YouTube at www.youtube.com/channel/UCA-ZP07pEpCzWuGGeI1veWQ

From Dr. Ingham’s Monthly E-Zine, Issue #15, April 2001
greenwave@unisun.org

Did you know…

The vast majority of ginseng in the world has been sprayed with chemicals, especially fungicides. Some ginseng plants are also sprayed with pesticides and herbicides. There is a sacred relationship between the earth, the air and the water for ginseng to grow. To grow “wild” the plants are found traditionally in hardwood forests under a canopy of tall dense deciduous trees. Usually the slope is facing North in rich humus soil and it is surrounded by companion plants. Since it is a root it absorbs the natural minerals from the soil. Research has indicated that it may not be possible to regrow a root in the same exact spot for many years, since it depletes the soil. New research into natural herbal fungicides is being conducted at Eagle Feather Farm.

The ginseng that is cultivated can be farmed in raised beds, like in Wisconsin, or in “woodsgrown” beds like in the mountain and foothill forests of the East Coast of America. What occurs when large numbers of ginseng plants are grown in close proximity is that a fungus appears, every time. As the fungus moves in the beds it creates a circle and in a short period of time destroys the entire bed. A typical bed can have thousands of plants and be worth tens of thousands of dollars. As far as we know the only way to eliminate the fungus is to spray the plants. The fungicide, pesticide or herbicide is then absorbed into the root. It is not known if the chemicals are toxic.

The two types of ginseng are different in the following ways: the wild organic root is knarled, ringed with wrinkles, small, light weight and has a bitter woodsy taste. The cultivated root is larger, heavier, smoother, tastes sweeter and smells different. The 1994 price on the world market for dried roots were ninety (90) percent more for the wild organic roots. Studies in 1986 show that 94% of the organic wild American Ginseng is purchased by the Chinese in the Pacific Rim. The Orient, mostly from Hong Kong, sells the most chemicalized ginseng back to us for American consumption. This not to say that fungicided ginseng does not have ginsenicides, it does. However it would also include chemicals with possible toxin build up in the body which most people would not want to ingest. Unfortunately, the ginseng industry does not tell you the negative effects of its products.

Learn everything you wanted to know about Ginseng and keep up on the hot political issues regarding foreign imports of this important commodity.

By Gloria Austin –
Reprinted from The News-Record & Sentinel, Marshall, NC
Thursday, November 25, 1999

In the center of Enterprise, Alabama, there is a noble statue of a woman holding aloft an enlarged replica of a boll weevil. Erected in 1919, the statue heralds the issuance of a new prosperity brought to the citizens there after the innocuous -looking insect utterly destroyed their cotton crop one year. A gallant switch to poultry and peanuts proved not only easier to raise, without all the back-breaking work, but actually brought in more money!

There is a moral to this story that farmers would do well to look into. Tobacco has been the major and sustaining crop for Madison County for generations. Now that the government seems to be attacking the crop from all sides because of the medical effects of the plant, maybe we should be looking elsewhere, too.

Environmental Concerns

Mark Carter of the N.C. Geological Survey team in Asheville tells me that in a 1992-96 survey, half the wells and all of the streams contained at least one pesticide. “We need to look after the environment. The landscape needs the ecology of our new ideas: fertilize without synthetics (bacteria, soap, enzymes, chrysanthemums). Use ”I.P.M.” (Integrated Pest Management) for a stronger permaculture. We can alternate beef with grain.”

We are wearing out the soil, planting the same crop year after year. And what happens to our investment if there’s a drought…or a blue mold attack? How much are you spending on fertilizer? How many hours do you spend out in the heat of the fields, checking, pulling and stacking?

According to Newsweek, health and related products have become a $3 billion industry. The Carolina Farm Stewardship Association together with the county agent are showing farmers how to spend less, save more, and make a profit besides. As an alternative, organic farming is now fast becoming the trend of modern farmers. Environmentalists are telling us, ‘”Don’t cut down the trees!” Even Mike Dombeck, Director of the Forest Service, stated recently that he plans to trim only one third of the timber that was originally planned to be harvested in the 1980s. He oversees 30,000 employees who manage 192 million acres of government-owned forest. States are now seeing that tourism blossoms when hikers flourish… and mountain seekers need trees!

The Organic Way

In the high country of Madison County beyond the ghost town of Barnard and the serpentine road that leads to white-water rafting, lies Eagle Feather Farm. Robert Eidus, already known to readers of this newspaper for his tireless advocacy of the raising of ginseng and herbs, gave his assurances from his backwoods paradise on a hot August afternoon during a farm tour. His energies and enthusiasm convince any inquirer to get on the ginseng bandwagon.

“Pesticides? Spraying is poison. We use ladybugs and lacewing wasp larvae, and field horsetail is a natural fungicide. Field mice? Get a cat! Goldenseal and ginseng self-pollinate. They’re perennials. For every 350 seeds in a stratified poiund, you’ll get 83 to 86 percent germination rate next spring. There’s so much land that’s owned by northerners, and it’s not being used. Woods soil is always good soil. If you’ve got at least a 75 percent shade canopy, a steep slope and damp/moist conditions, that’s the best.

“We grow blueberries here, too! But the shade stuff is where the action is! We’ve developed our own formula for amending the soil in the woods using 25 percent vegetable compost and 75 percent pine bark mulch compost, and now we’re looking into gravity and drip-fed irrigation. American ginseng sells for $300 up a pound! Even if you’re not motivated, you’ll make money because this isn’t even full-time work!

“And another thing,” he continues, “Why can’t we grow hemp here? They do it in North Dakota. It’s drought-resistant, and it grows everywhere, even at sea level. You can harvest that almost three times a year! It doesn’t take much to grow thateither.”

Other Possibilities

Madison County could be the quiet, peaceful “bridge” to Asheville. If we had enough bed and breakfasts, tourists could see the sights in the south and return at dusk to relax and hear the crickets. Advertising is key to that success. Or, if you prefer animals, how about raising alpacas or llamas? The fleece is gathered and sold to craftsmen and weavers all over the world for a very profitable return, and the animals are relatively low maintenance and very manageable and good natured. They come in 22 colors!

If we don’t get anxious and overwhelmed by the defeat of tobacco, we might even come together and make a more sizeable profit. If Alabama can do it, so can we. According to the county agent’s office, burley tobacco only brought about $1.90 a pound last year. Maybe there’s something better out there for us all. We just have to have the courage to explore the possibilities.

Gloria Austin is a writer who lives in Madison County.
The News-Record is published in Marshall, N.C. (http://www.newsrecordandsentinel.com)