Digging for Gold: Harvesting Teasel Roots in October

Well, it's October, and we're still out here being crazy herbalists. And what do herbalists do in October? We go digging for gold. Let's talk about it. I'm Dr. Patrick Jones from the Homegrown Herbalist School of Botanical Medicine. And I'm Davis Walker with Homegrown Herbalist. And it's October, and we ought to be hunkering by the stove and drinking wassail and getting ready for the holidays and stuff, but instead we're out here with a shovel. Uh getting ready to dig some roots. Yeah it's great working working season. That's right. Nice and cool and and this is harder work than herbalists usually have to do. Usually we're picking a leaf or a flower or a berry. Now this time of year you actually got to get a tool out and do a little real labor. So we're going to be harvesting roots and you know you can harvest roots anytime you want. They'll you know they'll still be medicinal but they're going to be a little stronger in the fall One exception to that, where it really does matter, is for biennial plants and a biennial plant has a two-year life cycle. So the first year it makes this low leafy thing, second year it shoots up and flowers seeds and dies. Well think about that plant and what he's thinking about how important his roots are in May of the year he's going to flower seed and die. You know, he's not putting anything down there. Everything's coming upstairs. And so for biennial plants, it's really important to get them either the fall of the first year, or this early spring of the second year before they shoot up to start doing the end of their life. And one of our favorite biennials is teasel, Dipsacus fullorum. And we've got teasel right here growing all over the place. And in fact, look at this, Davis. How many plants do we have here that are medicinal? Oh yeah, no, it's crazy. You know what I mean? Just in a 10 square foot patch. I got plantain, I got teasel, teasel. yellow dock over there. Yep, there's dandelion. Yeah, we got dandelion. Plantain, teasel, yellow dock, dandelion. I'm sure there's more. Yeah, there's mallow, that's five. Yeah, there's a lot more plantain here than I thought there was. Yeah, there's a ton. One, two, three, four, five. Anyway, that's another thing to be aware of, and we're always beating that drum, is you are surrounded by medicine. We have five species here, every one of which would be on my must-have list of ten herbs. You know, I mean, they're all really great rock star plants. Yeah, we didn't plant them either. We didn't plant any of this. This is just our property here in southern Idaho. Down by the creek. Yep. So, anyway, how are we going to find teasel, Davis? You know, teasel is actually really easy to find, especially... If you know what you're looking for, these, uh, the way they grow up and die, they're like little flags. They're going to show you where they're at. They're just going to say, Hey, Hey, Hey, look down here. Yep. And we've got these little patch right here. And what we're going to be after is not the guys that are dead because that's your first reaction. Oh, there it is. I'm going to go get that big plant right there. And that's what I'm after. No, you're after the big leaf batch right below it. Yep. So you find the old grandmas that are dead or dying. And you look at their feet and you'll find the kids, those are the first year plants that are going to be grandma's next year. Yeah. Right, so yeah easy to find but don't dig up the flag. No, don't take the flag out and I mean you can push her down because he's dead. Yeah. But you go after the first year because that's where they're focusing down. Grandma's focused up. This guy right here, this is what you want. Not, not grandma. Little flag saying hey we're right here. This is nothing against grandmas. Just so you guys know, disclaimers, I love my grandma. This is your flag. He's telling you exactly where all the good medicine is. Look right here. Oh, this is beautiful. He's great. Idea of what you're looking for when you're after his root all his energy is going down. He's getting ready for winter. He's tired He's going. Nope. I'm going down into the ground Yeah, and look at the you know, look at the difference between these two kids He made a lot of leaves this first year plant made a lot of leaves so he can feed that root Oh, yeah, so in the spring you can do this and she didn't do much at all for leaves or things You know, she's and it's a small plant. They get lots bigger, but the resources of this plant are all right here Flower and seed, you know. If you look, actually, she still has seeds on her, too. Yep, right. But if you look at it, she's pretty thorny, too. And I don't know if you can see them, but there's little thorns and pokers all over these leaves because she's going to grow up and be pokey like her mom. This is not your emergency teepee. Yeah. Anyway, it's a really distinctive-looking leaf with those spines on the front. So we've got a bunch right this nice little patch right here I'm going to pull out and we'll see what we can get. And I go a little wider than the plant because I want to get the root. I don't want to hurt that root. So when I hit I don't go right at the base of the plant. I do that on purpose. I can always put dirt back but it's hard to fix the broken root. That might have been too much. Look at that. Well you've got two or three of them in there. Yeah and I've got a few here but there you go. Teasel root. Teasel root. There's your gold for you for the year. It's a pretty good chunk right there. And we've got a whole video on Teasel. Go watch that. We'll put a link down in the description for all the great medicinal things Teasel does. Great for pain, great for MS, great for all kinds of crazy stuff. But go look at that video. But there's your roots. Yeah, he's going to fight me a little bit. He's just a little guy. That's right. He sure was just little. Yeah. But they don't, you know, Teasel roots don't get huge. This is probably, you know, three quarters as big as you find them. Um, but, uh, I'll tell you something else about harvesting roots and that is, um, don't harvest roots out of the water. You know, we're right by this Creek and there's a lot of teasel right down there, right next to, or actually in the water. And, uh, those roots tend to be less medicinal because the plant's not working as hard. You know, these guys up here, we've had a drought all year this year, uh, and they haven't had a ton of water and the medicine in these plants is going to be much richer. Then the medicine down, you know, where the plants aren't working for a living. So that's something to think about, too. I think that's a general rule of life, you know. If you have to work for a living, you're going to get a lot meaner and bigger and stronger. That's right. It doesn't work for everyone. You'll be good for something. You're going to be in trouble. But you're good for something here. If you've worked for a living, you'll be good for something someday. I will say, you know, I got most of these roots out. But I've been around Teasel where the taproot is huge and I'll sit there and dig for it for 20 minutes and then finally I'll accept I'm just going to get that much. Be okay with that. It is okay. Let the rest of it go. He'll come up later and you'll deal with him later. Yeah that's especially true with like burdock where the root goes down you know six or eight or ten feet. Or comfrey. Or comfrey. I mean you're not gonna get it. Your life's too short. Just get half the root So we're gonna just chop these up and dry them. We're gonna chop them before we dry them. Probably wash them off first. Yeah, I think that'd be good. Take off the top, we don't need that. Yep, so we're gonna we're gonna get them ready to dry and then once we've dried them we will grind them and immediately make medicine out of them. But if you're not going to immediately make medicine out of them, you know, leave the little wafers and grind them up as you need them. When we meet them, they'll be a little better. I will give you a hint about chopping those up for prep work on these guys. Let me show you something. When these dry out, they're going to become like a stick. So when you chop them up, you got to remember your wife, you love your wife, and if you break her blender, she will take it personal. So the nice little, little, little chunks when you chop it up, it's really important. You don't think it is until, you know. So I'm going to chop that. You know, as a wafer, you know, that's about how thick I want it when I chop it up to dry. And then you dry it and you can throw that in the blender. It won't bust it up. But if you threw this, if you dried this whole root and threw it in the blender when you were done, you'd be breaking blender blades. And quite honestly, it's going to dry so much faster by doing it this way. Yep, that's right. So there's your medicine. Fantastic plant, teasel. So let's talk about some other biennials, you know, where it matters a lot when you harvest. Teasel's one, burdock is one. Mullein is a biennial. There's several of them and if you want the root from any of those plants you need to harvest it either in the fall of the first year or the spring of the second year. Don't harvest any of those plants when they're up you know flowering and seeding just because they're done thinking about roots. Yeah I think it's just a good habit to get into harvesting roots Spring or fall, whether it's biennial or annual plants, just get into that habit because then you're not worried about it. You don't have to look at this plant and go, okay, are you annual or biennial? Usually you'll know, but it's just a good habit to get into. And it doesn't matter if it's a biennial or a perennial. Fall and spring are going to be best. I mean, even the guys that are going to come back every year, they're still, their energy is going down during the fall. Yeah, it's going down in the fall, and in the early spring, it hasn't come out yet. Yep. Yep. Like you were saying before, think like a plant. If you guys want your medicine to be awesome, harvest at the right time. Yep. I'm Dr. Patrick Jones. I'm Davis Walker. See y'all later.