By Michelle Sharp
Minnesota soil turns out to have just the right qualities for growing high-quality ginseng.
Traditionally associated with Eastern medicine, small servings of ginseng are said to promote wellbeing, cognitive sharpness, and strong energy levels.
With over 70 years of combined experience, Tyler Saemrow of Morristown’s Ty’s Ginseng learned to grow ginseng under his grandfather’s tutelage starting when he was 10 years old. “I love being out in the woods and simply watching our plants grow. It takes time, lots of it, but it’s so worth it.”
“The best part about growing ginseng is that I am able to work with my grandpa, mom and dad every day,” shares Tyler. “Not too many people can say that.”
Tyler’s grandfather Ernest Hering used to hunt wild ginseng that grew in southeastern Minnesota’s river banks. Over time he and a friend collected seeds that they planted back in their own woods.
AN UNEXPECTED APPRENTICESHIP
Tyler started working with ginseng by going out into the woods each fall with his grandfather to transplant roots and select which ones to harvest. Tyler learned how to clean and dry the roots to prepare them for sale—often to destinations in New York City and San Francisco.
“I enjoyed the time outside, but it seemed like a lot of work at the time,” reflects Tyler. “I never thought that someday I wanted to be the one growing ginseng in our woods.”
Every year Tyler assumed more responsibility with the process. He valued being involved. Accompanying his grandfather on a sales trip during his senior year of high school brought the whole cycle of the process to life. “I really enjoyed meeting the buyers. I got to meet so many people and hear their stories about what they do with our ginseng. Then I was really in.”
TURNING LOCAL
After that trip, Tyler and his grandfather planted a new ginseng field on his dad’s dairy farm. His grandfather told Tyler that that was his woods, so Tyler was fully responsible for the care of those new plants. When those roots were ready to harvest in 2020, the sales trips with national and international buyers were not possible due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Looking locally for new customers, they applied to the Minneapolis Farmers Market. They’ve been there regularly ever 
since educating market visitors about ginseng and sharing their harvest in both whole roots and ground powdered form.
Establishing Ty’s Ginseng means that their harvest goes directly to their consumers rather than being brokered through a middleman. From that initial woods created with his grandfather, Tyler now manages five fields. “I never really inherited his ginseng,” explains Tyler. “I inherited the knowledge. We started from scratch on the whole growing of the ginseng for our new business.”
WORTH THE WAIT
Roots are typically at least six years old before being dried and processed into powder, the most typical way that people use the prized root. The longer it grows, the stronger its potency. Ginseng plants thrive in shaded conditions, making them an ideal agroforestry crop. A drought resistant plant, dry summers make for steady growing conditions. Winters without snow cover, however, pose a challenge as turkeys and other critters dig up the plants.
“It’s still hard even with our combined 70 years of experience,” states Tyler. “Every year we have a new challenge. It’s like, why did those seeds not sprout? Why did this section not come up this year? Or why are they only coming up like this? You have to be patient and wait. Your plans go through a lot in the six to seven years that it takes for the roots to be ready.”
Even after harvest, timing is key. Depending on their size, roots take three to five weeks to dry under controlled conditions. Tyler and his family process all the roots in a commercial kitchen so that their powder can be sold in retail locations.
“We’re small and we’re learning,” says Tyler. “We take a lot of pride in what we do. We don’t rush things. We want to try to get the best ginseng root possible.”
GROWING WITH RBIL
Ty’s Ginseng is a member of the 2025 cohort of the Rural Business Innovation Lab. RBIL is a cohort-based, entrepreneurial program that redefines the narrative of rural decline. Each cohort builds a peer network dense with ideas, expertise, and resources that help rural small businesses start and scale their work within their communities.
Working in both Minnesota and Wisconsin, RBIL supports rural businesses in their growth to become sustainable drivers of economic health.
The desire to make Ty’s Ginseng a sustainable business for his family made Tyler think that RBIL’s entrepreneurial program could pull them closer to their goals. “Meeting with the coaches gives me a different head space, a different perspective on how we could be marketing and selling our ginseng,” explains Tyler. “It’s amazing to have the reassurance of talking with someone who knows about the bigger picture and helps you sort through the possibilities for
moving your business forward.”
Working with other businesses has a huge impact too. “Working with the farmers market and selling direct to consumers is a whole new way of creating a business. Just being able to get new ideas and share them with the other members of the cohort has been so good for us.”
MINNESOTA GROWN GINSENG
Find Ty’s Ginseng each summer at the Minneapolis Farmers Market or order direct at www.tysginseng.com
Follow along in the shaded fields on Facebook and Instagram.
Contact Cameron Payne cameron.payne@cedausa.com at RBIL to learn more about the program. Visit https://www.cedausa.com/ruralinnovation/ for a program overview.
Follow Meet the Minnesota Makers @meettheminnesotamakers on Ambit, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
This story was originally published to Meet the Minnesota Makers and is shared with permission. The link to the original article can be found here.
The garlic lifestyle is the cornerstone of the Olberding Family’s Rustic Roots Farm in Alexandria, Minnesota.
syrup, planted asparagus, powdered garlic to reduce food waste, established mushroom logs, built a farm stand, and created custom spice blends using their garlic powders.
entrepreneurial program that redefines the narrative of rural decline. Each cohort builds a peer network dense with ideas, expertise, and resources that help rural small businesses start and scale their work within their communities. Working in both Minnesota and Wisconsin, RBIL supports rural businesses in their growth to become sustainable drivers of economic health.
The program tailors itself to fit a range of business types including farms with value-added products that depend on direct-to-consumer sales like Rustic Roots. “I know we accomplished a lot more in this past year than we would have if it was just us doing it on our own,” shares Julie. “Having guidance from our coaches and professional experts is so helpful. The networking of our peers continues to be incredible. We’re all in the weeds together. It offsets the isolation of running your own business where everything can simply feel so hard.”
Sign up for their newsletter at 
On a gentle slope in southern Minnesota that Rachel Davis’ grandparents called Poverty Knob, Kalvin, Rachel and their children raise a myriad of mushrooms at their ten acre certified organic solar-powered farm. Now the fourth generation to steward the land, their innovations in sustainable practices make year round fresh produce feasible in a responsible fashion.
LeRoy, a town of approximately 900, coming home offered an opportunity to build their dream life within their community.
Kalvin, a trained carpenter, converted the farm’s garage into an insulated production space for 150-200 pounds of mushrooms weekly. Their outdoor forest farming space provides fertile growing space for more mushrooms, ferns and art installations.
“We were really excited about the prospect of having personalized coaches to help our business scale up. RBIL helped us to achieve so much more than we initially had thought we would get out of this experience.”
Kalvin’s personal favorite mushroom that they grow is their chestnut. Gently fried, it adds a delightful crunch on top of a Ramen bowl. “It gives a squid or calamari vibe,” says Kalvin. His favorite to forage is hen of the woods. Kalvin describes it as the chicken leg as opposed to the chicken breast-like flavor found in the colorful chicken of the woods mushroom. “The best way to prepare hen of the woods is deep fried in a beer batter with a side of garlic aioli. It may not be the healthiest, but it’s so good.”
Visit
What happens when two friends—one a shepherd frustrated by seeing sheared wool treated
as a waste product and the other a teacher and librarian concerned by the decimation of the world’s peat bogs, a natural carbon sink—join forces?
The pellets themselves are one hundred percent wool. Sheared wool direct from a sheep goes into the shredding machine, nicknamed Wilma. Wilma, courtesy of her nine whirling blades of death, shreds the wool into little bits that resemble popcorn kernels. These kernels become pellets courtesy of Betty, the pellet mill. Betty compresses the kernels to create the pellets.
ght of 150-200 pounds. “There’s some entertaining wrestling that goes on as we wrangle the wool,” laughs Karen. “It’s taller than both of us! Sometimes I do wonder how we ended up here as we’re grunting and groaning to load the wool.”
moisture back to your plants. If the soil is too wet with the inundation of too much rainwater, the pellets can pull moisture away from the roots.”
Karen.
Purchase woollets wool pellets directly from Elaine and Karen at 
The MTRY & Co’s mission is simple, “It’s all about bringing the delicious world of small producers directly to you, making the farm-to-table experience accessible and delightful for everyone, and connecting an inspired community with access to top quality small producers,” explains Colette. “Our online marketplace looks to make it as easy as possible for people to connect with quality food that supports local producers.”
people and tasting the products themselves. “Trying new recipes, just experimenting with the same kind of meat through different forms of preparation is really the MTRY in a nutshell,” smiles MacKenzie. “We have some tried and true methods, but you rarely see the same meal twice with our crew.”
Starting from a “let’s figure it out together as we go” mentality is how the family navigated the world of USDA regulations, food safe shipping (involving BluTooth thermometers and compostable packaging), and how to best create a community among their producers and their consumers. “We come from a farm family,” reflects MacKenzie. “We understand the blood, sweat, and tears that go into raising these animals to certain standards. There’s a lot of pride and a lot of time that goes into it.”
Established in 2022 by Community and Economic Development Associates (CEDA) RBIL is a cohort-based, entrepreneurial program that reverses the narrative of rural decline. Each cohort builds a peer network dense with ideas, expertise, and resources that help rural small businesses start and scale their work within their communities. Working in both Minnesota and Wisconsin, RBIL supports rural businesses in their growth to become sustainable drivers of economic health.
Explore the producer collections and sign up for the MTRY’s newsletter at 