Free to read · nothing for sale · no ads, no sponsors · funded by donation
Open Source Apothecary At Home / Growing it
Three of these need cold stratification to germinate and a full season before you harvest anything. Plan accordingly.
growingThis group is where a herb garden stops being easy. All four are grown for a part that takes a season or more to be worth taking, all four have a specific harvest stage at which their active compounds peak, and three of them will not germinate without a cold period.
Echinacea. Grown for root (mainly E. purpurea and E. angustifolia) and for the aerial parts. Seed needs cold-moist stratification — sow in autumn or refrigerate. Root harvest begins in the second or third autumn, dug after top growth dies back. Alkamide content is the thing that varies, and the cultivation literature is concerned with it specifically. It also has real clinical evidence in the common cold, which puts it in the small group where the cultivation work has something to serve.
Valerian. Grown for the root, harvested at the end of the second or third season. The root is a strong-smelling thing — the smell is characteristic and is not a sign of spoilage. Valerenic acid is the marker compound and is affected by cultivation conditions. The trial evidence for insomnia is real but mixed, which is worth knowing before you dedicate two years of bed space to it.
Milk thistle. A spiny biennial grown for the seed. Seed needs to be harvested when the pappus forms, and the seed is the medicinal part. The clinical evidence is largely negative — trials in chronic liver disease have not shown clear benefit. This is a case where the growing instructions are genuinely interesting and the therapeutic claim is weak, and both should be said.
St John's wort. A perennial grown for the flowering tops, harvested at full flower and used fresh or dried. Hypericin content is the traditional marker. It carries the longest drug-interaction list in the herbal pharmacopoeia and it is photosensitising, which are the two facts that matter most about it.
The through-line for all four. For every one of them the active-compound content varies with harvest timing and cultivation conditions, and for every one of them the harvest stage is specific: root after dieback, flowering tops at full flower, seed at pappus. Growing these means committing to a two-to-three-year cycle and to harvesting at a stage rather than a date.
Multiple shoot regeneration from shoot apices was recorded on BAP (1 mg/L) and BAP (1 mg/L) + IAA (0.1 mg/L).PubMed 25872250 ↗
The major components in the extracted oil from supercritical CO2 were isovaleric acid (18.7-41.8%), valerenic acid (8.2-11.8%), acetoxyvaleranone (5.6-9.6%), (Z)-valernyl acetate (4.5-6.5%), bornyl acetate (2.3-7.7%) and valerenol (3.7-5.2%), whereas by hydrodistillation were bornyl acetate (11.6%), valerenic acid (8.0%), (Z)-valernyl acetate (7.9%) and acetoxyvaleranone (7.6%).PubMed 18164718 ↗
KEY POINTS: • Hemidesmus indicus has multiple therapeutic applications. • H. indicus roots are used in confectionary and pharmacy. • This review comprehensively assesses H. indicus tissue culture. • Challenges and future research of H. indicus biotechnology are discussed.PubMed 32535696 ↗
Further investigations on the physiology, genetics and proteomics would contribute to a better understanding of seed dormancy in Paeonia.PubMed 30276471 ↗
To answer some key scientific issues in Dendrobium, quality formation, flowering, self-incompatibility and seed germination would be the focus of future research.PubMed 30066218 ↗
By identifying the most influential environmental variables, this research has the potential for the sustainable utilization of this species, enhancing both its conservation and use as a medicinal resource.PubMed 40644415 ↗
Echinacea (Echinacea purpurea, E. angustifolia)
Valerian (Valeriana officinalis)
Milk thistle (Silybum marianum)
St John's wort (Hypericum perforatum)
Common handling for all roots
Common handling for flowering tops
Sequencing the bed