good morning hi I'm Maggie and this morning we are outside of our offices in
Ashland Oregon and we have a special treat for you today because we are going
to go out to the banyan farm project outside of Ashland and Williams Oregon
and harvest ashwagandha yeah we're gonna go check out what's been growing out
there and see what the process looks like for taking that ashwagandha out of
the ground
but it is raining a little bit and we weren't expecting them but hopefully
it'll lift up by the time we get out there this is a little Drive
so we've been growing Ashwagandha in India at our cooperatives for like many
many years but and actually we've been growing Ashwagandha in southern oregon
for the last like three or four years but those have been kind of small little
experiments and this year we grew a whole field with the intention of-
really coming down now - with the intention of being able to use this
ashwagandha root in our production and in the making of our products
all right we are here on the farm we made it out here and it's not raining so
that's really good and we've got Tyler and Tommy and these are our guys who are
working out here a year ago we found this farm and then since then I've been
working alongside Tommy just making the day-to-day decisions here and what we
want to plan and how to do that and how to tend to it so working alongside Tyler
and the other four members of our crew to really just try and steward this land
the best way possible and fill it up with all the different herbs that we can
grow for Banyan here and yeah a lot of Tyler and I's roles is you
know planning figuring out what's what's going to go grow best we're coordinating
planting times harvest times and so forth and today we're gonna be
harvesting ashwagandha
yeah so here we are with Ashwagandha and the beginning of these plants life was
in the end of March right around the spring equinox and here we are shortly
after the fall equinox oh it's been with us just about six months from seed to
now when we're harvesting it this is what you started with so you had dried
seed like this we had dried seed like this and each of
these yeah we seeded each of these in a little cell right around the spring
equinox you mean cell you mean like those little
planters yeah just little planters yeah yeah it takes them
about a week to to to germinate and we're having about six weeks in the
greenhouse before we plant them out in the field so we planted
everything out here yeah right around the beginning of May through throughout
the month of May and it's taking them May until now here at the beginning of
October until they've gotten to this this lovely queenly size as gauging by
the size our roots yeah it feels like we've done pretty well okay so you're
gauging by the size of the roots because really that's the part that's gonna be
going into products that's the medicinal part this little part is the root yeah
are there other medicinal parts in there Tyler do you probably maybe have some
more info there I would say to this point the root is primarily what's been
used but we are having more and more interest in using the aerial parts and
so there's research and emphasis being put into the leaves and I could see that
over the next year's being incorporated alongside the roots and part of people's
apothecary are the actual leaves without you're down the plant as well
Ashwagandha is a it's a member of the nightshade family and this the seed and
these seed pods being the most most strong characteristic we see of these so
this is a bit reminiscent of a tomato or a tomatillo that sort of thing yeah just
like a tomatillo it looks just like a tomatillo yeah they grow in these they
grow in these pretty pretty lanterns and yeah really really quite neat and these
lantern like seed cases enclosing the fruit and then the fruit encasing the
seed and are these seeds toxic generally the yeah the fruit and the seed is
mildly toxic yeah or not recommended to you as is the
case with lots of blots in the nightshade family that too much
tomatoes being ones that we have to spread that that characteristic Adam
questioning when we want to harvest especially in a climate like this in
Southern Oregon so we're considered to have a temperate climate we're in a zone
eight and so this plant we want to collect before we get those first really
hard frost and that's when we start to see a greater impact on the plants
vitality and especially the integrity of the root and one indicator for us is
when the swollen calyx is shift from a green to a brown and so when we see a
good percentage of these calyx is shift to this brown color that's an indicator
that it's time for us to collect the roots and so out here we're gonna be
collecting ashwagandha root anywhere from the end of September through
mid-october is typically our harvest season
I think the ashwagandha really thrives in a variety of different soil types I
think the main thing is an adaptogen it's an adaptogen it adapts you had all
these different areas but I think generally like with most plants it
really wants it wants a loose soil it does well in sandy soil that drains well
which we certainly have on this farm and just really some soil that's really deep
and loose so you can just encourage that deep root growth and as far as growing
the grown goes but what ashwagandha really likes how it really thrives is
that summer heat which we haven't have an abundance here on a hot week where
we're getting consistent hundred degree weather you really you notice these
plants grow on those times you know they could grow they could grow several
inches in a week and it's really the heat that they respond to
I could just quickly demonstrate what the harvest process looks like
choose a hardy Hardy plant right here generally the bigger they are the harder
they are to get out of the ground so we harvest these using these handy digging
Forks generally we'll just get as close to the root face of that plant as
possible get under there you generally do that a
couple of times so it's avoid breaking any roots loosen the soil and now it's
ready to pull out
there's our Ashwagandha root they're generally unlike a carrot or something
though I'll grow it like kind of this more sprawling root mass and this is a
yeah this is a healthy specimen this is about what we've been getting on average
here's a couple for comparison just to give you a sense of what each one looks
like side-by-side those are three separate plants they're basically will
the separate that's that root mass from from the stock and the leaves so
generally that all this will get left out here in later compost student we'll
bring this into the to the wash and pack and wash it before it goes into the dry
room
so each of these ashwagandha plants when they're wet just coming out of the
ground weights just about a quarter pound one pound of fresh way it translates to
about a third of a pound of dry weight so in translation that means it'll it
would take us about twelve of these plants just in order to get one dry
pound of ashwagandha the stage of the process after we harvest it is just
about breaking this down into smaller pieces before makes it at the dryer room
we can't send send this whole chunk to the to the processing facility so
basically just cutting off about one inch pieces off of all these stuff all
these roots breaking it down til it's a little more uniform and small
so after we have a a nice nice pile of one-inch ashwagandha root pieces built
up then we'll just put it through the washing process so we're just trying to
get every last bit of dirt off of here to end up with the most clean and
bacteria free product possible and then the final stage is leaving into the dry
room and it'll it'll be in the dry room for about 10 days before it's fully dry
yeah so we'll get it packaged up and we're actually going to be sending it to
the processing facility in Albuquerque it's the Banyan processing facility and
this will make it into some of the products we see Banyan offer and I think
these in particular and we'll be going into some oils okay like being oil like
our Ashwagandha Bala oil absolutely, vata massage oil
okay nice mmm it's like chewing on a stick
I'm surprised it tastes pretty green but not bad though you still get that
Ashwagandha flavor that shines through I definitely am getting the bitter right
now mm-hmm that one shines the most so for me
personally I can feel a little restless at night and I would say if there's any
stress that is accumulated in my life or that day it tends to show up and express
an evening and so I'm usually looking for a plant or plants or practices that
are gonna help calm me down and help me get into that sleep and rest state and
ashwagandha is one of those plants that I like to work with and really I do it
every evening and so when we look at what that is I will take the powder -
Ashwagandha root about a tablespoon to 6 to 8 ounces of milk and IU is goat milk
but you can use cow milk you can use a nut milk and I'll add that ashwagandha
root powder to that milk and then I'll slowly bring that to a boil and while
I'm bringing that milk to a boil I continue to stir so that Ashwagandha is
integrating into the milk well and the reason why I don't boil for a long
period of time is as you can tell Maggie as you're chewing on this root it's
quite bitter and so the longer that the ashwagandha is in hot or warm milk
you'll get more of those bitter tones and sometimes that taste is a little
overpowering and for me I have a sensitive Constitution so I like a
subtler flavor profile so I don't influence it by that much heat but I'll
bring it to a boil I'll continue to stir once I shut that heating element off
then I'll continue to stir for another few seconds and then I'll drink that
milk about 30 minutes to 1 hour before going to bed and it comes my body it
allows me to feel comfortable and any of that stress just just diminishes that's
one of the amazing powers of this plant
alright so that was I look into the ashwagandha field here at the banyan
farm project thanks so much for watching and checking this out with us today I
really hope you learned something about ashwagandha and that if you haven't ever
tried it before that you are interested in giving it a go so check out our
products with ashwagandha in it we've got oils tablets and even just
bulk powder if you have any questions or comments just leave those in the
comments section below and yeah don't forget to subscribe to our channel for
more Ayurvedic videos thanks for watching bye