Getting to the roots of things

Regenerative Subsistence Flora Food & Medicine
#1

First time poster, hey there.

I’ve desired to make dandelion root tea for a while now, or perhaps add some roasted roots to my coffee to make it last longer. Anyhow, the thing keeping me from doing so is, they’re a tad underground.

So the question: what sorts of implements might you recommend for getting at them (and other roots, all sorts of buried things, etc.)? I’ve looked through the wiki and the conversations, but about the only thing run across concerning a digging stick has been “ta hickory stick scars the soil faster than a pine stick.” makes sense that woods of greater hardness would be preferable, but does anybody use strange shapes (a hook on the end), what lengths, widths, etc.?

#2

Great questions and nice to have you join. I notice that Urban Scout posted a wonderful aritcle about dandelion root tea awhile back. He may have a fresher outlook on this than most here.
I believe a digging stick that works good enough for you should work. You may have to test several sticks before you find the one you like the best and by that time you may have some roots dug up. Now go out and find one.

#3

i usually carry a folding camp shovel with me. not one of those crappy walmart ones that will bend and break on you the first time you have to do more than lift a scoop of sand–but a good army surplus one.

if i don’t happen to have that with me, i’ll try to improvise some kind of digging stick. hard woods are better than soft, naturally. sharpen the end with only one bevel. in other words, it should look like this:
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and not like this:
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if you bevel it from both directions, then you lose the strenght of the ring growth to push against, and you run a better chance of it splitting. to bevel, i will either cut the stick that way with my camp saw or grind it at a 45 degree angle on a stone or concrete surface.

shove your digging stick in the ground next to the plant with the beveled face away from the plant and then lever your stick away from the plant as well, so that the solid ring growth is taking the force of the earth and pushing toward the dandelion.
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(flower) (stick) lever the top of the stick this way -->

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(root) (bevel)
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your goal is not always to use the stick to push the whole root out of the ground. it depends on the soil. sometimes it’s better to just use the stick to losen the soil and then uproot you plant by grasping the stalk near the base and pulling it up–like “weeding” a garden.

with dandelions, the fiber strenght is pretty fragile. so i usually have to pull up the clot of ground the root is growing in and then use my fingers to break the dirt away from the root.

i lieu of a good, solid wooden stick, i have also used rebar and the tines of a turning fork (a gardening tool that looks like a pitchfork).

its the kind of thing you just have to experiment with. every plant will uproot differently. every soil will have different qualities. every digging stick will have different properties. but the principle remains the same.

#4

Hey, thanks much WildeRix, that’s more than I was expecting, especially with those diagrams. Time to experiment.

#5

you’re welcome. it was fun to stretch my ascii-fu skills to make the diagrams.

all my experience comes from experimenting after having read about digging sticks in Thomas Elpel’s Participating in Nature.

#6

I just got Elpel’s ‘Botany in a Day’ last weekend, it’s great, perhaps if some more cash comes across me I’ll grab the one you mention. Read here and there that it’s got lots of information not covered in other primitive skills books, can you verify this?

I’ve a few books on edible wild plants, all mention roots to some degree, but never how to get at them, hence the inquiry. At my father’s now, he’s got a spare garden spade abouts, think I’ll use that for a bit, then at some point see how that compares to a digging stick.

p.s. I dig ascii.

#7

there’s a common gardening tool that i call a ‘root digger’ and it’s amazing when it comes to dandelions or docks or other tap roots.

it has a V shaped end. looks like this one:

it works really really well for me.

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Admin note: modified to show image.

#8

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|/ < Beleveled end design helps smoothly drive the stick into ground and aids prying up of soil.

#9

i don’t really have any other primitive skills books, so i can’t compare. but i do like elpel’s writing. it can be a bit cumbersome to wade back and forth between his more poetic moments (which are interspersed throughout the book) and the practical descriptions of things. but once you get into the flow, even those become less cumbersome.

i felt like i learned a lot just from reading the book before i ever started actually trying things. the practice has come in bits and pieces after the fact, so i think it attests to his descriptive style that the imagery stayed with me long enough for me to get around to practicing what he described.

in short, i highly recommend it.

#10

It’s the season for digging a lot of roots now. Plants have gone to seed and the energy is going back down into the roots.
I use a tree planters shovel for a lot of my root digging. I gave one to my Uncle from Saskatchewan and he really digs it (pun intended).
I went up in the mountains this morning and got a bunch of valerian and some bear root for him. He usually comes to visit in september and we go out digging but I always get some stuff for him before he gets here so he can have lots to take home with him.

Skalopsky- I’m gonna look for one of those tools like you have. Those look good.

#11

heyvictor,
bear root as in osha root?

those tools are really great.

#12

yeah, aka osha