this is the place where we've been our Echinacea purpurea for the last three years and now we're proceeding to dig up one of the dormant roots because during the dormancy of the plant which is when the energy of the plant goes back down to the roots that's the time to harvest for roots and our intention is to show you each step of the process for making a liquid herbal extract which is used for enhancing the immune system and stimulating the killer T cells and the beginners the macrophages which clean up your bloodstream and help you avoid the common cold and other kinds of illnesses very useful for children as well as for adults my wife swears by it and this tincture ultimately will go into her medicine cabinet and she can have fresh echinacea tincture for her years now I'm going to dig it up with one of the best tools for this kind of application which is a spade and there she comes out of the ground these are the stems from last year those are not useful anymore prior to this we actually put all these back the goldfinches have been in eating their fill of the seeds now you see that this is a spreading rooted plant it doesn't have a tap root the roots spread out the plant that are relevant for us or the crown with the little emergent sprouts nascent stems on next year stems and leaves for this coming year and the reutlitz which are very high in the immune stimulating compounds and we can check to see if this is a good second AC or not by cleaning up one of the rootlets and we can take a taste of that and what did should do is it should stimulate the immune system from the time when you first take it into your mouth you feel that slight buzzing sensation that's the immune system already kicking in and this does have a nice buzz to it so it must be some good stuff