Goldenseal Beds

[IdahoHerbalist]

I have been up to my experimental self again this last few months. I have brought in some golden seal roots and planted in a bed specifically built for them and some other Eastern forest dwellers (black cohosh).

Here are some pictures of the finished bed and the roots.

The bed is a double layer of cinder blocks. These make GREAT beds as they do not EVER rot! I put a layer of pine needles in the bottom of the bed. I then added some high protein materials and some coffee grounds to get the needles composting. Layers of a material I get from a local source mixed with some of my own lava sand and peat moss were then used to get near the top. I then mixed in 4 bags of pine bark.

After doing the mix it up thing it smelled just like damp forest duff! It was light and fluffy and very easy to dig in .

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[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead Instructor]

Very cool Steven. I look forward to seeing how they do. 🙂

Patrick

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

[kc29oct]

awesome to see, so when do you expect to see results?

[IdahoHerbalist]

The roots that I bought were said to all be 3 year old roots. That is about the age when most harvest and process them. I am hoping for flowers and seed from many of them this year. Right now I am hoping that I did not plant them too deep.

What I also found out is that I probably could have cut each of the roots I got into 2 or 3 pieces (or more!) and gotten lots more plants. That would have put out the harvesting 2 to 3 years though. This way I will be able to harvest a few, make some tincture and then divide an multiply them for future harvest. The bed will be dropped down to one layer of bricks and the top layer made into a second bed for either golden seal OR a black cohosh bed (most likely.)

[IdahoHerbalist]

Results are in :yahoo:

As of today, only 4 plants have not shown their head.

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[IdahoHerbalist]

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[IdahoHerbalist]

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[IdahoHerbalist]

Ain’t She Purdy! :wub:

This is the flower that was on the first plant posted a few days later.

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[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead Instructor]

Cute lil’ boogers.

Doc

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

[IdahoHerbalist]

Only one or three are either not up or not very big.

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[IdahoHerbalist]

UPDATE: All but one place where I expected to find plant growth have put forth leaves. I think that one spot may have actually not had a plant though.

Have not seen much in the way of predation either.

The little seed buds are forming now. I sure hope something in my area knew what they were and polinated them.

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[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead Instructor]

This is exciting stuff. You continue to push the edge of the envelope on what we can grow out here in the desert.

I have a new maxim to go with my previous one “All plants are useful, we just don’t know what some of them do yet.”

The new one is “All plants can be grown in the Idaho desert, Steven just hasn’t figured them all out yet.“

Thanks for all you’re doing in this area Steven. It’s really important work. :clap:

Doc

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

[IdahoHerbalist]

Found a picture to update this thread with this morning.

I had just a few plants that brought their seed heads to this stage. This was the best one. Birds got some and I lost the ones I collected, hopefully in the bed itself!!!

Most of the plants did well this year. Several were quite small. I also had some black show up on many of the leaves. Forgot to take pictures of that. Not sure if the black was too much Idaho Sun or some sort of fungus.

I have also learned that the soil mix I put together may not have been the best for these guys. Need to find some hardwood leaves to mulch and dig into the top layers. Hoping the pine I used does not have too negative of an affect on the plants.

I also added quite a number of new roots to the bed this fall.

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[Fey]

There is a fungus that affects Goldenseal called Botrytis. It’s usually caused by a mulch that retains moisture for too long (like straw) and then not enough air flow around the plants. It’s normally treated with copper oxychloride, a fungicide used by organic gardeners. Yuck! In my opinion, Goldenseal that fights off a number of problems will only become a more superior antibiotic. Most of the time, the plant will lose some leaves but will send up new shoots to compensate. It doesn’t affect the roots.

Did the fungus appear as the plants were going dormant? If so, they might have been in a bit of a weakened or dying off state as they were going to sleep. As long as there’s no root rot from sodden soil, then a leaf fungus shouldn’t harm the plants too much.

My choice of fungicide is chamomile tea or a good cinnamon dusting. (Wouldn’t it be wonderful to grow cinnamon?!)

Pine bark (unless you added a compost activator like fish emulsion or blood and bone) would drag nitrogen from the soil and stunt growth. But look at your plants! They’re gorgeous! I wouldn’t change a thing if I were you.

Sometimes when Goldenseal is transplanted, they sleep through a season. The thing to know is that even a tiny iddy bitty hair root will eventually, after a couple of years, develop into a plant.

Another thing to know about Goldenseal is that they usually flower around the fourth year. If the plants have been in the ground since seedhood, then they need dividing. (Yours wouldn’t yet because you bought them already divided). But, in a few years’ time, when your plants have half a dozen stalks coming up around the main crown, they have to be divided otherwise the main parent crown will rot and die leaving all the babies around it to take over. If they’re divided, the parent can be saved and they will always be your best seed producers. I buy laundry baskets to place over small plants to either give them a temporary form of shade and to protect the berries from birds. It doesn’t stop mice though, and mice love Goldenseal seeds.

I really like your garden, especially the way you’ve used the holes in the Besser bricks to hold support tubing for shade cloth or netting.

On page one, the last picture, what flower is that at the back of the garden near the building?

[IdahoHerbalist]

Fey wrote: On page one, the last picture, what flower is that at the back of the garden near the building?

😛 Those are not flowers. They are landscape flags to mark where my false soloman seal roots are buried. I did that so I would not dig them up while planting other things. It did work except for the couple of flags my wife pulled because she thought they died. The wind had damaged the surface growth and she does not know much about rhizome plants. I eventually found them while weeding and replanted them.

The hoops were initially put in as a preemptive against deer. I did not put any shade cloth up because I thought the willows and elms would provide enough shade. I use the hoops for three things. Initially it was for Winter gardening. Secondary was for shade cloth where wanted. Third for deer suppression. Oh yeah, a fourth reason is to hold up poultry cloth to keep the quail out of the beds when seeded and seedlings are present.

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