Growing Ashwaganda and Harvesting Seeds

Ayurvedic tradition has prized Ashwaganda for thousands of years and is said to be the most important herb in all of Ayurvedic medicine. Helping with anxiety and stress, boosts immunity, reduces blood sugar, improves bone health, improves thyroid fuction, lowers cortisol, increases muscle strength, and helps to fight cancer (just to name a few) so you can see why.

2 years ago I found an Ashwagandha plant at a local nursey. I’ve taken Ashwagandha as a powered supplement so I jumped on the chance to own my very own plant! Many people have heard about the amazing health benefits from Ashwagandha, but not everyone knows that you can grow this powerful plant at home to make natural or folk medicine. The many medicinal health benefits are derived from the dried roots. I’ll explain that in another post.

The Ashwagandha plant is a native perennial herb to India and hardy to zone 6. While living in Louisiana in zone 8b isn’t exactly the same climate as India, we do share some similarities when it comes to heat, drought and often times torrential rains.

Tips for Growing Ashwagandha

Plant in the sunniest part of your yard, ideally in full sun
If starting from a seed wait until there’s no danger of frost and the temperatures have warmed up
Keep soil moist until seedlings emerge
Once the plant is established it is virtually fuss free
Will tolerate drought extremely well
On the other side of that its also tolerated a year where we’ve received more rain on record than any year
It also rebounded from an unusually cold winter where we had below freezing temps and snow
Only use organic compost or natural fertilizers if needed
Harvest the roots either the first or second year after the bush has flowered and set seeds

Harvesting Seeds

Once the plant has flowered it will slowly begin to make red berries covered in a creamy colored paper. When the berries get bright red and paper becomes transparent you know its time to harvest the seeds.

As tempting as they appear they’re not edible. The medicinal properties are located in the roots. However. you can harvest seeds from INSIDE the red berries.