herbs Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Violets Make Medicine, Munchies And Memories

Every spring, violets bloom across Appalachia, a carpet of purple, white and yellow. These unassuming flowers do everything from spruce up a cocktail to fight cancer. Here are a few of the ways herbalists use them for food and medicine.

This story originally aired in the April 14, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

Brandy McCann is a self-taught herbalist from Blacksburg, Virginia, who considers violets a personal gift. She was born in late April, when the flowers typically bloom.

It has always delighted McCann that she was born on Earth Day. When her mother went into the hospital, things were a bit dark and dreary, but when she emerged a week later, violets were in bloom.

“So that’s always been a very special thing to me, when I see the violets blooming, every spring around my birthday, I just feel like it’s such a gift from Mother Nature,” McCann says.

McCann enjoys reciprocating the gift of violets by using them to make presents for friends and family. In her sunny kitchen with a view of the flowers growing in her yard, she demonstrates how to make skin toner.

“I have a jar full of dried violets and I harvested them probably a couple of weeks ago. I let them air dry on a towel and put them in the jar,” McCann says. “And then I have here some jojoba oil, or you can use olive oil, any kind of carrier oil that’s good for the skin. And then I pour the oil and fill the jar, leaving just a tiny bit of headspace and then set a lid on it, and give her a good shake out every day.”

For a month or so, McCann says to keep the infused oil in a clean glass jar away from light, heat and dampness. Then strain out the plant material and keep the oil.

Brandy McCann makes skin toner from violets and jojoba oil. She has made gifts from violets for more than a decade.

*Photo Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

That’s one fun project people may want to try with violets, but there are many uses for these flowers. Nica Fraser studied at the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine. She teaches her daughters herbalism as part of their homeschool curriculum. One of their projects is making violet lavender sugar.

Tastes differ, but Fraser suggests one to two tablespoons of culinary dried lavender combined with two cups of sugar is a good base. To this you can add a fourth- to a half-cup or so of dried violets — leaf and flower, not roots. Start with less and add as you go, then blend the mixture until smooth. Taste, then add anything you think it needs more of.

A blender can be used to make violet sugar. A mortar and pestle will also work.

*Photo Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Learning with violets can be fun, and Fraser particularly likes that the violets add vitamins to the sugar all children love.

“I think per gram, you get about double the dose of vitamin C in a gram of a violet leaf than you do in a gram of an orange. They’re also rich in vitamin A, they’ve got great magnesium content, and they’ve even got calcium in them,” Fraser says.

Fraser’s youngest fills a flower bowl for processing back at the house. Fraser has taught her daughters to forage for spring violets, along with other edible flowers.

*Photo Credit: Nica Fraser*

That high vitamin content is also why Fraser likes to watch her daughters pick flowers during playtime — and consume them.

Of her oldest daughter, she says, “One of her favorite things to do is to know that she can just be walking outside playing, take a break, eat some flowers and keep going.”

Fraser learned to love foraging from her grandmother, who taught her as a child to hunt morels.

“She was actually the person who planted that seed in me, that you could find nourishment out in nature.”

It is a seed Fraser delights to see growing in her children as they forage on the family homestead in southeastern Ohio.

“I get to take my two daughters out into the woods, and I teach them what I know, and they are so very interested,” Fraser says. “They light up … they love taking this in and they retain it. They apply it, they ask questions, and it’s just really, really enjoyable to watch these little budding herbalists run around in the yard every day with their inquisitive minds.”

Those minds have retained a great deal of information, even at their tender ages. Fraser asks her kids whether they should eat violets that grow near poison ivy, and they come up with excellent information.

Violets are versatile and vibrant.

*Photo Credit: Nica Fraser*

Fraser’s daughters head toward a favorite foraging spot. They have been learning about plants during home school lessons with their mother.

*Photo Credit: Nica Fraser*

“We definitely don’t want to pick it because it will put the oils on from the poison ivy,” the girls reply, more or less in chorus. They add not to pick near busy roads where car exhaust would saturate the petals and leaves, or in a barnyard pasture, because — poop.

Keeping all those caveats in mind, violets are still one of the safest flowers for new foragers because they’re so easy to identify.

Dr. Beth Shuler and a patient at Powell Valley Animal Hospital. Shuler studied herbal medicine for animals as a supplement to her licensed veterinary practice.

*Photo Credit: Powell Valley Animal Hospital*

Dr. Beth Shuler, a veterinarian who studied at Purple Moon Herbs and Studies, loves violets.

“They just make me smile. I like that they’re gentle, they’re easy to find,” Shuler says. “It’s so safe and easy to use that you can put it in your cocktail or your salad, but at the same time it’s very strong and powerful enough to help cure cancer.”

Shuler owns Powell Valley Animal Hospital in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, and often uses violets in her practice. She says they’re a good herb for breast care in dogs and people.

“Most of the dogs that we would use violets for are dealing with breast cancer, mammary cancer or mastitis,” Shuler says. “We would do a combination of oral treatment with a tincture.”

Violets are also a great cleanser for infected wounds. Shuler’s youngest dog, Sirrus, is about to get a special treat because Shuler wanted the flower power working inside of him. He had cut his foot on some ice, and it was a little bit swollen.

Or, as Shuler puts it, “he’s got mild lymphatic inflammation up in his axillary lymph node draining from that injured toe. So I’m placing some tincture, violet tincture in ethanol, on a corner of a piece of toast.”

Sirrus chows down. Shuler’s pleased by that, adding that giving dogs toast is not a common thing in her household, since bread is not good for dogs as part of a daily diet.

“But it does act as a very nice absorptive sponge for tinctures to go down easily. And less mess,”

Schuler explains that humans and dogs have multiple lymph nodes; think of them as internal trash cans trying to keep the garbage away. When people get sick, lymph nodes under our arms sometimes swell up and ache. But lymph nodes have no pump. Violets are excellent at breaking up and dispelling lymph from our bodies. Just another reason to love it, in Shuler’s opinion. But also a reason to treat it with respect and not eat too many of them at once.

“The violet is very powerful and easy to find. But again it is not a simple herb,” Shuler says.

In other words, don’t go eat a bunch of violets — or rub them on your dog’s feet — and expect either one of you to feel better right away. Shuler’s dog Sirrus got a few days of tincture toast.

Sirrus, the youngest of the Shuler/Tester family dogs, is happy to have eaten violet toast live on the radio. He had a mild cut that became inflamed, so Shuler treated him for a few days with violet tincture.

*Photo Credit: Brandon Tester*

“It’s not a one dose and done,” Shuler says. “These are built up in the body as repetitive use, it’s not an overnight fix.”

Literally safe enough for small children to swallow as a snack, violets can clean wounds, fight cancer or spruce up a gin and tonic. Violets are nothing if not versatile.

Violet gin fizzes are wonderful drinks. Shuler made two for drinking in her back garden, as a celebration of violet versatility.

*Photo Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Dr. Beth Shuler and her husband Dr. Brandon Tester both took classes held on the North Carolina coast from Purple Moon Herbs and Studies. She is a veterinarian; he is a chiropractor.

*Photo Credit: Brandon Tester*

For a fun list of things to do with violets, check out Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine. Remember, never try a new unidentified plant or medicine without first consulting an expert.

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The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts and culture.

The Herbal Magic Of Violets And A Book Ban In Virginia, Inside Appalachia

This week on Inside Appalachia, spring wildflowers are in bloom, and some of the most common species play an important role in herbal medicine. This week, we learn about some of the ways people use violets. Also, what’s your favorite style of egg roll? An acclaimed, out-of-the-way restaurant in Pounding Mill, VA bends culinary genres and uses an unexpected ingredient. And, more and more school boards are pulling books from library shelves. We’ll speak with a reporter in a Virginia county where 57 titles were yanked.

Spring wildflowers are in bloom, and some of the most common species play an important role in herbal medicine. This week, we learn about some of the ways people use violets.

What’s your favorite style of egg roll? An acclaimed, out-of-the-way restaurant in Pounding Mill, Virginia bends culinary genres and uses an unexpected ingredient.

And, more and more school boards are pulling books from library shelves. We’ll speak with a reporter in a Virginia county where 57 titles were yanked.

In This Episode:

Violet Tendencies

Violets will grow almost anywhere. They are one of the first flowers to grow in Appalachia come spring.

*Photo Credit: Brandon Tester*

Every April, violets bloom across Appalachia, adding purple, white and yellow to the deepening green of the hills. But violets do a lot more than add natural flair. These flowers have long been a key ingredient in herbal remedies.

People use them to fight cancer and the common cold. And they make a pretty tasty snack.

Folkways Reporter Wendy Welch brings us the story.

Taking A Bite Out Of Cuz’s Uptown Barbeque

Yvonne Thompson owns Cuz’s Uptown Barbecue in Pounding Mill, Virginia. A place that mixes cultures, flavors and fun.

*Photo Credit:* *Connie Bailey Kitts/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

In the South, people love to argue over which barbecue sauce is most authentic — vinegar, tomato or mustard. But Cuz’s Uptown Barbeque in Tazewell County, Virginia, is distinguished by something entirely different. For starters, its food is inspired by Asian cuisine and local mountain specialities.

You can find dishes on its menu like Morel mushrooms, cheesy egg rolls, and country ham caprese.

Back in 2022, Folkways Reporter Connie Bailey Kitts and her family stopped in at Cuz’s for supper.

A Book Ban In Rockingham, Virginia

Members of the Rockingham County School Board, which recently voted to remove 57 books from school libraries.

*Photo Credit: Ashlyn Campbell*

Book bans are nothing new. But we’re seeing a new spike in book removals across Appalachia, including in North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

Sometimes, debates that lead to book bans happen in state legislatures. But they’re just as likely to play out on the local level, in public schools.

In January, the school board in Rockingham County, Virginia voted to remove 57 books from school libraries, prompting an outcry.

Ashlyn Campbell has been covering the story for the Daily News-Record. Mason Adams spoke with Cambell to learn more.

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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Sean Watkins, John Inghram, John Blissard, Amythyst Kiah, Dinosaur Burps, Doc Watson and Frank Hutchinson.

Bill Lynch is our producer. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens. We had help this week from Folkways editors Nicole Musgrave and Mallory Noe-Payne.

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Inside Appalachia is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Appalachian Ginseng Opened Trade With The World

Luke Manget, an assistant professor of history at Dalton State College in Dalton, Georgia, dug through community store records to gain insight into the wild herb trade in America, especially looking at ginseng and its connection to Asia.

Manget spoke with Eric Douglas recently about his new book “Ginseng Diggers: A History of Root and Herb Gathering in Appalachia.”

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Douglas: Give me the 30 second primer on ginseng.

Manget: Ginseng is a deciduous perennial herbaceous plant that grows about 18 inches high and grows pretty prolifically in the mountains. Since the early 18th century, it has been in high demand in East Asia and particularly China. The Chinese have used Asian ginseng for thousands of years as a panacea. I mean, it was the most important medicinal herb in their pharmacopeia. Early in the 18th century, Jesuits working in Canada and China discovered that American ginseng was close enough to Asian ginseng that it could be substituted in the markets and East Asia. And so it started this trade that funneled Appalachian or North American ginseng to the markets in Asia. It was driven entirely by demand from East Asia and China.

Douglas: In the early 1800s, you’ve got people who’ve barely heard of China, are digging up ginseng and sending the crops to China, and making a living off of it or supplementing their income anyway.

Manget: And, in fact, ginseng from West Virginia helped open up trade relationships between the United States and China in 1784. This was right after the American Revolution. And people were moving into the region moving across the Ohio River, moving into the Ohio valley. And in 1784, a group of financiers outfitted this ship called the Emperor of China and it was going to be the first contact made directly between the United States and China. There are a lot of consumers over there; we were trying to figure out how to break into the market. They didn’t really want much of what the Americans produced, but they wanted ginseng. And so we loaded it down with 100,000 pounds of mostly Pennsylvania and Western Virginia ginseng and established a trade relationship with them.

Douglas: I guess the local settlers are taking it to the community store and trading it. And then the community stores are collecting it and sending it to Baltimore or New York?

Author Luke Manget, a history professor, poses with ginseng.

Manget: Initially, there were itinerant merchants who traveled around hauling wagon loads of goods bartering for whatever they could get. Some of the first ones to come into the region would just send out word that they were going to come through with their wagon loads of goods. And people would bring them ginseng, skins and furs and some of the other stuff. I’m sure these merchants would have preferred, you know hard cash and gold and silver, but there just wasn’t a lot circulating. So they had to take whatever the locals could give them. And ginseng served as something of a currency in the early economy. Later on it became funneled to the country store, so the country merchants would open up these big stores, and advertise they would take in barter and then at the end of the year, they might have a merchant kind of come through from Baltimore buying up their ginseng.

Douglas: One of the things you’ve talked about in the book, is the concept of a community commons with gathering on community forest land. Can you explain that to me?

Manget: The story of root digging and herb gathering in Appalachia is essentially a story of the commons. These plants were not cultivated in private gardens, and after the 1830s 1840s, I mean, there’s no public domain left in the region. There’s no kind of public land, all of it’s owned by somebody, mostly in West Virginia, large land companies, absentee owners, speculators. So, it was all private property.

But on a local level, the locals treated the mountain sides primarily as something of a commons. And by that, I mean, it was widely expected that everyone in the community would have access to these forest and mountain sides. It was like a de facto public domain. Members of the community pretty much assume that any plant they found growing wild, that wasn’t planted by someone’s labor, right, that was the property of whoever found it, the harvester rather than the property of the landowner on whose land it was found. By the Civil War, it was a pretty established custom, although it was always subject to some sort of negotiations. After the Civil War, there was more pressure on the commons and it kind of changed the dynamics a little bit there. Now, of course, you can’t just assume that you can take them from people’s property, so it’s shifted along the way, but back in the 19th century, the commons was a pretty powerful institution.

Douglas: Which brings me to my next question. Where does ginseng farming stand today? Is it still a money making enterprise?

Manget: The cultivation of ginseng really ramps up around the 1890s. By this first or second decade of the 20th century, there’s kind of this craze for ginseng cultivation. And it was a big thing back then, and kind of subsided over time for a variety of reasons. Over the last 30 or 40 years, it’s definitely become more important in certain places. Wisconsin, I think, leads the country in ginseng cultivation. There’s a lot of bigger farms up there. In Appalachia, there are people that have the big patches of ginseng. Although most of them they’re doing what’s called forest farming and they’re growing wild ginseng. So they’re essentially growing it in the forest. And it doesn’t look like a garden, but they’re growing it in their woods and they got a big patch going. And it’s definitely their private patch. It’s definitely cultivated in some form.

Douglas: The markets are still there, though. There’s still a demand from Asia for ginseng root. And it’s still a moneymaker?

Manget: It’s still a money maker. There’s less of it than there used to be. And there’s more regulations now. In parts of western North Carolina, it’s declining and the Forest Service has actually prohibited digging for the last couple of years on forest service land in North Carolina just to let it rebound. So it’s a little harder to find, but it gets anywhere from $600 to $1,000 a pound now. So it’s still pretty lucrative if you can find it and dig it legally.

Luke Manget, author of “Ginseng Diggers: A History of Root and Herb Gathering in Appalachia.” is an assistant professor of history at Dalton State College in Dalton, Georgia.

Traditional Herbalism More Than A “New-Age” Trend In Appalachia

This story is part of a recent episode of Inside Appalachia. Click here to hear the full episode.

Crystal Wilson’s small garden beds and animal pens sprawl off both sides of a dirt drive on the side of a ridge south of Knoxville. She’s been gardening and tending the herbs on her forest floor in Rockford for a quarter-century.

Today, herbal remedies are experiencing a renaissance. Industry trackers reported an explosion in sales — and prices — last year. But this “new-age” trend has been a traditional source of wellness and independence in Appalachia for centuries.

Wilson grew up in Southwest Virginia learning about wild plants on long walks with her father, who was a factory worker. Her grandparents made extra money gathering plants to sell at an herb house in Marion. It dried them and sold the components to pharmacies.

“Appalachia used to be the pharmacy of the United States,” she said. “We would harvest the plants here, they’d go to compounding pharmacies and that would make medicine. So folks could gather things and take them to sell them to make extra money. That’s always been part of who we are here. We just forgot it.”

Wilson didn’t forget. Until the COVID-19 pandemic, Wilson sold remedies from her farm and at a farmer’s market, mostly to women.

She learned the skills from not only her family, but Appalachian women she taught to read during her first job after college.

Crystal Wilson picks elderberry blossoms from bushes growing at her farm in Rockford. She calls elderberry the gateway to herbal remedies for many people, as elderberry syrup has gained mainstream popularity.

“They were all working women,” she said. “It’s not as bad in Appalachia as it was 30 years ago, but (illiteracy) was a real thing — you know, they’d have someone else sign their checks for them at the grocery store. So I taught them — and through that, they taught me.”

As a writing exercise, the women wrote down home remedies they knew. Wilson took those on a literacy exchange program to the Bronx and shared them. The Puerto Rican and Dominican women there wrote down their own. Wilson was struck by the similarities in folk wisdom among women from different environments and cultures.

Historically, women have turned to herbs when they needed help with health concerns like menopause and family planning, Wilson said. Many people today also use herbal remedies for several other problems of our age: sleeplessness, anxiety and depression.

“That talks about who we are as a people, and what we struggle with,” she added.

Elderberry Is The Gateway

For a lot of people, elderberry is a gateway to other traditional remedies, Wilson said. In late spring, she makes a tincture of elderberry flowers and honeysuckle steeped in vodka. She said it helps bring down an elevated temperature, whether a fever or hot flashes.

“This is what keeps me grounded to this land: Herbs have different cycles,” she said. “My year is planned around what is harvested and how it’s harvested.”

It starts with violets in the spring, then honeysuckle flowers.

“Then we’ll do leaves through the summer,” she said. “In the fall, the energy of the plant goes back down in the ground and the root, so that’s when you want to harvest the root, preferably during the waning moon.

A wandering flock of noisy, angry-sounding guinea fowl followed her as she looked for a fully flowering elderberry bush after a cool spring. Picking her way among goat and chicken pens, she scolded an escaped kid. It bleated at her, unimpressed.

Crystal Wilson adds elderberry flowers to create a fever tincture as her guinea hens fuss around her feet.

After a hunt, Wilson broke off clusters of elderberry flowers like small lace doilies. After checking for bugs, she washed the elderberry and some honeysuckle flowers in a metal bowl full of water from one of the huge square rain barrels built onto platforms at the corners of her house.

That’s an example of how Wilson values what modern science has to teach about conservation, climate change and medicine. She’s getting advice this summer from the non-profit Appalachian Sustainable Development, which is going to visit the farm and recommend improvements to make her woods even better for deep-forest botanical plants like goldenseal.

As a diabetic who relies on insulin, Wilson emphasizes that herbal remedies are not a substitute for modern medicine. She has even taught workshops for nurses about how to avoid interactions between herbal remedies and prescriptions.

“For a tincture, you know, it’s a plant and alcohol base,” she explained. “I usually use potato vodka because a lot of folk got wheat allergies. So now we’re going to take our potato vodka and cover this up.” She poured a full bottle of it on top of the flowers in a glass jar.

When someone buys a tincture, Wilson uses a formula based on their age and weight to personalize the dosing. She’s aware of modern challenges.

“We’ve got a lot of opioid addiction, so you know, you don’t want to give someone struggling with that an alcohol,” she said. “So I’ll use glycerin or even apple cider vinegar for someone like that.”

She sets the jar in a windowsill, and shakes it when she walks by every day. In six to eight weeks, she’ll strain it and put it in little amber dropper bottles. The dark bottle can help it last a couple of years.

“So everything is slow about this, from the plants to the medine,” Wilson said. “Nothing’s fast. There’s wisdom in that.”

Wilson says she’s concerned that the rising mainstream popularity of herbal remedies will lead to over-harvesting Appalachian forest plants, as it has with ginseng and ramps.

But she said she’s excited to see suburban enthusiasm for traditional remedies actually driving more Appalachians back to them.

“It’s so wonderful to see people (go) ‘I know that!’ — and to have that light bulb come on again,” she said.

Age-Old To “New Age”

College-educated, suburban women have helped popularize herbal remedies, which can now be found in drug and grocery stores, Wilson said. Jill Richards, a mother of six living on the outskirts of Knoxville, reflects this trend.

“I think definitely through the years there’s been more of an uptick in just regular suburban moms wanting to do things naturally,” she said.

Jill Richards gets her daily shot of fire cider to boost the immune system at her home in West Knoxville.

Richards started making home remedies almost 25 years ago in Florida, because she didn’t want to give anything unnatural to her newborn. She learned recipes from books, her chiropractor, and other moms. The women would get together to make salves and diaper rash cream while their toddlers played.

As her kids aged, Richards came to rely on other remedies for her family — like fire cider.

On her counter is a big glass container with a spigot, the kind most of her neighbors might use to serve iced tea at a party. But hers contains a light amber liquid thick with floating white fragments and flower-like slices of pepper.

“So you take horseradish root, onions and garlic, habanero peppers, some herbs and spices and things like that, and then put them down in apple cider vinegar and let it ferment for four weeks,” she said. “I drink it every day during the winter, and I think it gets rid of anything.”

She poured some into a handy shot glass and tossed it back.

“It is very hot,” she said, wincing briefly. “But I am telling you, I don’t think anything bad could live near you if you drink that!”

Richards used to sell some of her remedies in stores. But in recent years she just sells elderberry syrup, which has gained mainstream popularity for warding off flu and colds. Some medical research seems to show it can strengthen immune response and shorten illness.

Richards puts out the word on Facebook when she cooks a batch from dried berries ordered online. (Sometimes she makes it into gummies for her kids.) She says herbal remedies are part of a holistic approach to health.

“It’s interesting to me that we call them ‘alternative,’ because this is what people used to heal for thousands of years,” said Richards, who is concerned about over-prescriptions of antibiotics making them ineffective. “This is the original medicine: plants and berries, and oils, and extracts.”

Gardening For Independence

Modern women like Richards can now learn the skills in formal classes. In the rolling fields of Clinton, Tennessee, a dozen members of a local Red Hat Society perch on stools around a bar in a greenhouse, clinking ceramic teacups. They’ve just had a workshop on herbal tea at Erin’s Meadow Herb Farm taught by farm owner Kathy Burke Mihalczo. She grew up mostly outdoors in nearby Oak Ridge, but she first learned about herbs from a co-worker at a garden center.

Mihalczo says the growing interest in herbal remedies from her customers, who mostly live in Knoxville, reflects the broader trend of wanting to know where our food and medicine comes from.

Erin’s Meadow Herb Farm started limited individual sales of immunity-boosters like elderberry and echinacea during the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent hoarding.

That went into overdrive during the coronavirus pandemic, when more people also turned to gardening.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Erin’s Meadow started selling out of immune-boosters like dried elderberry and echinacea. Mihalczo says some of her online buyers were hoarding. She quit selling more than a bag at a time.

“I think it did make people think, especially when stores were closed and restaurants were closed… ‘If I did have an injury or an illness, what would I do if I couldn’t get to the store for store bought medications? I want to know what I could grow and use right out of my backyard if I have a stomachache, my child couldn’t sleep, we have a small burn,’” she said. “And I think people realized that they were dependent on store bought things and maybe they didn’t have to be.”

This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council. The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.

Save The Forest, Get Paid: This Appalachian Farming Initiative Shows People How

Ginseng, Goldenseal, Cohosh, Bloodroot, Ramps – all plants native to Appalachia and all appreciated around the world for their medicinal and culinary properties. In West Virginia and other parts of Appalachia, these plants have been harvested in the wild for generations. But over harvesting of these slow growing plants could diminish wild populations. The West Virginia Forest Farming Initiative takes a different approach. The program teaches residents how to raise botanicals on their own forested land for a source of income and as a way to preserve the forests. And for the folks involved, it’s doing way more than preserving plants.

Learning From Family And Honoring The Past

At Sprouting Farms in Summers County, West Virginia, Ruby Daniels grows herbs like ginseng and cohosh, both as a source of income, and as a way to tap into her family’s history. In a special report as part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Project, Heather Niday explored how herbalists and farmers, like Daniels, are teaching others to grow native Appalachian plants, like ginseng, cohosh and ramps.

Daniels’ grandmother taught her how to prepare the herbs for use in teas and salves to treat all kinds of ailments. When she began working on a master’s degree in therapeutic herbalism, she started connecting her grandmother’s lessons with the science behind the folklore.

It’s also become a way to honor her ancestors. Daniels is a descendent of enslaved Africans brought to Virginia in the early 1600s. They brought with them a vast knowledge of herbal medicine but weren’t allowed to use it. In Virginia in the mid-1700s, enslaved people were forbidden to use herbs, a practice that was punishable by death, said Daniels. Now, when she makes teas or tinctures, she connects the science with the spirit.

“I listen to my inner healer. Commonly I might say, ‘Oh this person might need peppermint,’ but when I really work with them another herb is calling to me and I add that. When it all comes together, that formula makes sense for them.”

Daniels was born and raised in Maryland but spent her summers at her grandmother’s home in Beckley, West Virginia. It was there in her grandmother’s kitchen that she first started learning about native plants.

“I was always hanging around her and then I’d talk to her; she would always say ‘the moon gotta be dark when you plant potatoes and onions,’ so that’s a new moon, she was a moon planter, she planted by the moon. She just was so earthy.”

Her grandmother inspired her to experiment with her own concoctions, even as a young child.

“I was wild,” Daniels recalled. “I’d get apple blossoms and just make up recipes — so I was making herbal baths before I knew that’s what I was gonna be. She just let me. Once I got older and interested, I’d just talk to her. You know, there was always somebody in the Black community that knew some type of remedy for something.”

Sprouting Farms, where Daniels works, is part of the West Virginia Forest Farming Initiative, a program that teaches residents how to raise native plants on their own forested land as a source of income and as a way to preserve the forests.

Ginseng bed at Ed Daniel’s Farm with tree limbs are laid across it to discourage deer from eating the plants.

Tapping Into The Forests To Earn Money

As part of her training in growing botanicals, Daniels is working with the Yew Mountain Center in Hillsboro, W.Va. She said this educational aspect of her work is a way to help her community and give back to the land. “By conserving endangered plants like ginseng, or blue cohosh, or black cohosh, false unicorn…that’s how I would like to work with the community and bring some type of way people could have an income.”

Ginseng, goldenseal, cohosh, ramps, bloodroot. These are valuable, well-known plants that grow wild in these mountains. While some state residents may be able to identify them, many of them face threats because of things like overharvesting, habitat loss and climate change.

The Yew Mountain Center offers seminars and hands-on training about how to cultivate wild plants to build a forest farming business. Mature goldenseal root, for example, sells for up to $40 per pound and demand is growing during the pandemic.

Larger herbal manufacturers are looking for a stable supply chain. Yew Mountain Center director Erica Marks said herbal companies want to assure their customers that the plants are from sustainable and verifiable sources. “It’s very pragmatic, because it’s their supply, their products depend on it.” Marks said part of the forest farming program is teaching people how to become certified growers to get a higher price for their crop.

It starts with knowing the locations where the herbs will grow best, said Will Lewis, forest farming coordinator at the Yew Mountain Center. “The main thing you want to look for is a semi-mature mixed hardwood forest, where you’ve got some older trees,” Lewis said. Trees like sugar maple and other plants like trilliums and mayapples can also signal the forest is healthy, a place where wild plants will grow well.

Many of the native plants grow well with calcium, Lewis said. “Sugar Maples’ leaves have higher calcium, so every year fall when those leaves break down in the soil, it’s kind of like a calcium fertilizer,” said Lewis.

On a gentle slope just up the hill from the Yew’s lodge, three-inch-tall goldenseal plants grow about three feet apart. The plants start as seeds closely planted together in nursery beds. After a couple of years of growth, they’re transferred to the forest, usually in the fall when sufficient rain has fallen to create a moist, loamy soil.

Forest farming is an investment in time. Most of these plants take several years to flower and produce seeds. Erica Marks said finding a place to grow these plants can also be an issue in a state with a lot of privately-owned forest land.

“That is a nut we need to crack,” Marks said. “How do we increase access for people who want to do this?” Marks said one solution would be if growers could work out special forest farming leases with landowners.

Master Growers Teach The Next Generation Of Growers

Marks said the forest farming program at the Yew Mountain Center is still pretty new. So, they get a lot of help from veteran botanical growers, like Ed Daniels (no relation to Ruby Daniels). He and his wife Carole own a forest farm near Pickens, W.Va. and produce a variety of botanical oils, tinctures and salves that they sell online and in some local stores.

Ed Daniels on the porch at his forest farm near Pickens, W.Va.

Daniels is also a master artist in the West Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program, through the West Virginia Humanities Council. As part of that program, he’ll work with an apprentice over the next year to pass on the skills he’s acquired over a lifetime.

“As a young kid I grew up in a poor lifestyle,” Daniels said. “Ginseng was a way for me to earn money to get my school clothes and shoes and jeans.”

Daniels admitted that a desire for money pushed him to take more of the wild ginseng than he should have. As he got older he saw the effects overharvesting had on wild ginseng. Areas where he used to find wild ginseng were depleted. To atone for the mistakes of his youth, Daniels said he plants about 70,000 ginseng seeds every year.

Mature ginseng plants produce a tight cluster of bright red berries. After the berries ripen and fall off, the plant is left with a scar near the top of the root. Daniels said the scar on a fresh root is proof the plant was harvested in season. That’s important because ginseng can only be legally harvested in the fall; it’s the most highly controlled botanical in West Virginia.

And it’s by far the most lucrative. Daniels said in the current market, high quality dried ginseng root can fetch up to $800 a pound.

Daniels is also interested in what ginseng can do for those suffering from opioid abuse. “I’m treating three guys right now in the town that I live in who have suffered and are currently battling opioid addiction,” Daniels said. “The doctors took them off. They’re using our CBD oil and the ginseng tinctures.”

Daniels said the ginseng is helping the men to wean themselves off the opioid drugs. Ginseng has been used for thousands of years in traditional Chinese medicine to treat a variety of conditions, but there’s only a handful of Western studies looking at the impact of ginseng on easing opioid withdrawal. Daniels said he doesn’t claim to know how it works, only that he’s seen results.

“It gives [me] a warm feeling when someone uses it for the first time and two-three weeks later [says] what a change it’s made in their life in comfort and they’re now able to sleep at night.”

This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a collaboration with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the West Virginia Folklife Program at the West Virginia Humanities Council. The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.

Fall Herb Festival at Jackson's Mill

It’s fall, and for most gardeners it’s time to finish harvesting plants and begin preparing beds for the approaching frosts. For those who grow garlic, this is the time to plant bulbs. It’s also time to learn what you can do with some of the herbs you may have grown this year.

The Fall Herb Festival at Jackson’s Mill begins Friday. Twenty-seven teachers will conduct workshops about making herbal honey, growing edible gardens, and making simple cleaning and skin care products. There will be a workshop, taught by a massage therapist, about doing herbal facials.

Melissa Dennison is the president of the WV Herb Association and is organizing the festival. She says one of the new teachers this year is Victor Skaggs, of Marion County.

“He’s going to teach us how to develop your own kitchen garden, of the herbs that you use in your cooking,” Dennison said.

And if you’re new to cooking with herbs, there will be workshops for this too. “We really want to educate the public so they have some kind of awareness, and it’s very affordable.”

The festival is all open to the public, and costs $15 per day, or $20 for the entire festival. For members in the W.Va. Herb Association, the festival is $5.

The two day event begins Friday. That evening, Mimi Hernandez of Frostburg University will be the keynote speaker. She will be speaking about medicinal and edible plants of Appalachia.

For more information about registering for the Fall Herb Festival, click here or call Melissa Dennison, (304) 364-5589.