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5 min read"Everything's deer resistant until it isn't"
Andrea Miller, Sustainable Forestry Director at Rural Action, didn't plan her career in forest farming. She moved back to Appalachian Ohio without much of a plan at all. What she had instead was a childhood spent with a grandmother who stewarded ginseng patches and dug roots for the local buyer, and a slow-burning obsession with plants that finally caught fire when she worked for renowned ethnobotanist Dr. Jim Duke at his Green Pharmacy Garden in Maryland. "I was like, okay, I'm just like obsessed with plants. This is just what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. Just stuff with plants."
Why site selection is the only thing that matters
When Miller talks about forest farming—cultivating non-timber forest products like ginseng, goldenseal, and ramps under a forest canopy—she starts with a warning that sounds almost boring but turns out to be the whole game: pick the wrong site and nothing else matters. "All of these species, they're not traditional agricultural crops that you would grow in the field," she says. "You have to identify a good growing site. And if you don't identify a good growing site for all of these NTFP forest botanical species, and you go out and plant them in the wrong site, they're not going to thrive and they're probably not going to survive."
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Forest Farming Site Selection is the Foundation of Success** - Andrea explains that the most critical step for new forest farmers is identifying a good growing site, because the wrong site means the plants won't survive.
- 2 (01:06) **Andrea's Origin Story: From Grandma's Garden to Herbalism** - Andrea traces her lifelong interest in plants back to her great-grandmother, a gardener and ginseng steward who sparked her initial curiosity.
- 3 (03:31) **The Jim Duke Experience: Falling in Love with Phytochemistry** - Andrea describes working for renowned ethnobotanist Dr. Jim Duke at his Green Pharmacy Garden, which was organized by medical condition.
- 4 (05:46) **Managing the MUIH Garden: Expanding into Woodland Medicinals** - At Maryland University of Integrative Health, Andrea was given free rein to expand the garden, focusing on native woodland medicinal plants.
- 5 (08:47) **Intensive vs. Forest Cultivation of Ginseng** - Andrea contrasts the labor-intensive method of growing ginseng under shade cloth (common in Wisconsin) with the lower-input approach of planting seeds in a natural forest environment.
- 6 (11:10) **The Native Plant Obsession: Stratification and the "Aha Year and a Half"** - Andrea describes her growing fascination with native plants, particularly their complex seed stratification requirements.
- 7 (16:06) **Returning Home: From the Urban Sprawl to Companion Plants** - Andrea moved back to Appalachian Ohio, tired of the urban sprawl near D.C., and landed a job at Companion Plants, a medicinal plant nursery in Athens, Ohio.
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Show Notes
This week on Herbal Radio, we are joined by Andrea Miller, a passionate Earth steward and Sustainable Forestry Director at Rural Action, an environmental nonprofit organization based in Appalachian Ohio. Tag along with us as we explore:
- Rural Action: who, what, where, and why
- Dr. Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Database
- Finding medicinal herbs in unexpected urban areas
- How the pandemic sparked an increased interest in forest farming
- Hockings College: get an associate degree in forest farming!
- United Plant Savers & Rural Action: how industry can support medicinal plant conservation
As always, we thank you for joining us on another botanical adventure and are so honored to have you tag along with us on this ride. Remember, we want to hear from you! Your questions, ideas, and who you want to hear from are an invaluable piece to our podcast. Email us at [email protected] to let us know what solutions we should uncover next within the vast world of herbalism.
Learn more about Andrea below!
🌲 Andrea Miller has roots that run deep in Appalachian Ohio. As a child, she spent countless hours on her great-grandparents' farm in southeastern Ohio. Her great-grandmother was a ginseng steward and maintained a massive garden—interests that inspired Andrea to earn a degree in conservation biology from Bowling Green State University, followed by a master's in herbalism from Maryland University of Integrative Health.
After college, Andrea worked in Maryland for a time, managing the university's herb garden and serving as the garden curator at Dr. Jim Duke's Green Farmacy Garden. After living in Maryland for four years, she returned to Appalachian Ohio, where she worked for three years at Companion Plants, a medicinal plant nursery. In 2021, Andrea began managing the Sustainable Forestry Program at Rural Action, and in 2024, she was promoted to Director of the program.
In addition to her work at Rural Action, Andrea serves on the board of directors for the Athens Conservancy and the Native Foods Education Organization, and
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