Where can you buy the latest wormwood seeds?

Wormwood, also known as bingtai, ec ao, xiang ai and other names, is a perennial herbaceous or slightly semi-shrub-like plant of the genus Artemisia in the Asteraceae family. It often grows in wastelands, roadsides, riverbanks and hillsides from low to medium altitudes. In China, except for extremely arid and extremely cold regions, it is found almost everywhere, and it is very widely used among the people. Now let us take a look at where wormwood seeds are sold!

Where are wormwood seeds sold?

Wormwood seeds are rarely sold, and can only be bought in a few agricultural supply markets or online. Wormwood mainly reproduces asexually by dividing rhizomes, but it can also be propagated by seed. Generally, seed propagation is sown in March, and rhizome propagation is carried out in November. Before sowing, sufficient base fertilizer should be applied, with 4000 kg of decomposed farmyard manure per mu, deep plowed and thoroughly mixed with the soil, and after arranging, a sufficient bottom watering should be given once.

What are the uses of wormwood?

1. Medicinal: Wormwood has the effects of regulating menstruation and stopping bleeding, preventing miscarriage and stopping metrorrhagia, dispelling cold and removing dampness. It is used to treat irregular menstruation, menstrual pain and abdominal pain, miscarriage, uterine bleeding and other conditions. Because it can shave ice into round shapes and can also moxa a hundred diseases, it is one of the most commonly used medicinal materials in traditional Chinese medicine.

2. Edible: Wormwood is a very good food. Among traditional foods in southern China, there is a kind of ciba made with wormwood as a raw material. In the Dongjiang River basin of Guangdong, local people pick tender fresh wormwood leaves and wormwood sprouts to eat as vegetables.

3. Warding off evil: Wormwood has a close relationship with Chinese people's lives. Every year at the Dragon Boat Festival, people always place wormwood in their homes to “ward off evil.” The dried plant is soaked in water and fumigated to achieve disinfection and relieve itching. Postpartum women often use wormwood water for bathing or fumigation.

4. Moxibustion: Dried and pounded wormwood yields “moxa floss.” Moxa floss can be made into moxa sticks for moxibustion, and can also be used as a raw material for “seal ink paste (mainly made from cinnabar, vermilion, moxa floss, castor oil, musk, borneol, etc.)” and can also be used as a natural plant dye.

How are wormwood seeds planted?

1. Sowing method: Wormwood is sown in early spring, from February to March in the south and from March to April in the north. It can be directly sown or raised as seedlings and then transplanted. After sowing, the covering soil should not be too thick. Pay attention to management after emergence. When the seedlings are 10 to 15 cm tall, thin them to a plant spacing of 20 to 30 cm.

2. Planting density: For wormwood in February to March, when the seedlings are 5 to 10 cm tall, choose a time when the ground is moist and transplant the seedlings at a spacing of 30×40 cm, with 2 to 3 plants per hole, then cover with soil and press firm. If there is no rain within 2 to 3 days after planting, water drop by drop to preserve soil moisture.

3. Timely fertilization: After wormwood planting has survived, when the seedlings are 30 cm tall, apply 90 kg/hectare of urea as a seedling-promoting fertilizer, broadcasting it on cloudy and rainy days and spraying it on the leaves on sunny days. In early November, apply farmyard manure, stable manure, cake fertilizer and the like as base fertilizer.

4. Reasonable watering: For wormwood, after the Qiai harvest in early to mid-June, turn and sun the garden plot, remove residual branches and fallen leaves, and thin out overly dense stem bases and perennial roots. In dry seasons, when the seedlings are below 80 cm tall, use foliar sprinkler irrigation; when the seedlings are above 80 cm tall, flood-irrigate the whole plot.

5. Harvesting and processing: Wormwood is usually harvested in summer. Before it blooms while it is lush, cut the aboveground stems and branches with leaves, remove impurities and dead leaves, spread them in the sun to dry, then tie them into bundles and store them in a dry place to prevent moisture and mildew.