Leisha Ashwagandha has become one of the plants I treasure most in our gardens. When I first planted her at my home, I wasn’t sure how she would take to the Ecuadorian climate, a long way from the dry plains of India where she was born. To my delight, she didn’t just survive. She thrived, both in the garden beds at my home and at the Living Ground Project Site.
She isn’t the showiest plant in the garden. She stands with a quiet strength, her soft, velvety leaves stretching wide to catch the sun while her roots dig deep into the earth. But harvesting her is like uncovering buried treasure, because the roots hold her true magic. Thick and pale, they remind me of ginseng, and for good reason. Ashwagandha is often called Indian ginseng, revered for her power to restore strength, energy, and resilience. And when we tincture her fresh roots, something beautiful happens: the liquid slowly turns a rich, warm red, as if the life force of the plant is pouring into the bottle.
A Name That Tells a Story
The name Ashwagandha carries a story. In Sanskrit, “ashwa” means horse and “gandha” means smell. Together they translate to “the smell of a horse,” and it’s true. Freshly dug roots carry an unmistakable earthy, horsey scent, like leather and sweat and soil. But the name goes deeper than smell. It was believed that whoever took this root would receive the strength and virility of a horse, which is how she earned her famous title, “the virility of a thousand horses.”
Her botanical name adds another layer to her story. She is Withania somnifera, and “somnifera” is Latin for “sleep-bringing.” So in her two names, one ancient and one scientific, we have her whole personality: the power of a galloping horse and the deep rest of a peaceful night. I can’t think of a more perfect description of this plant.
She is also known as winter cherry, for the bright red berries she hides inside little papery lanterns.
A Surprising Family Connection
Here’s something that delights visitors to our garden: ashwagandha belongs to the nightshade family, making her a cousin of tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and eggplant. And if you look closely at her berries, wrapped in their delicate papery husks, you’ll see the family resemblance to our beloved uvilla, the golden berry that grows all over Ecuador. When I first noticed it, I laughed out loud. Of course she feels at home here. Her cousins have been growing in these Andean valleys for centuries.
She has another fascinating cousin, Withania coagulans, known in India as the “cheese maker.” Its berries contain a natural enzyme that curdles milk, and it has been used for generations to make paneer without animal rennet. The Withania family is full of surprises.
Three Thousand Years of Trust
Ashwagandha is one of the most honored plants in Ayurveda, India’s ancient system of healing. She appears in the Charaka Samhita and the Sushruta Samhita, foundational medical texts written thousands of years ago. Healers have been working with her for at least 3,000 years.
In Ayurveda, she is classified as a Rasayana, one of the great rejuvenators. Rasayana doesn’t simply mean living longer. It means living stronger, with more youthfulness, vitality, and clarity. Rasayana herbs are said to build “ojas,” the subtle essence of vitality and immunity, a kind of deep reserve of life force that keeps us radiant and resilient. To take ashwagandha over time was to invite the strength of a horse, the stamina of a warrior, and the calm clarity of a sage.
She is especially valued for calming “vata,” the airy, restless energy that shows up as anxiety, scattered thinking, dryness, and trouble sleeping. Her warm, heavy, grounding nature brings the flighty mind back down to earth.
Men took her for virility and endurance, and women turned to her for hormonal balance, recovery after childbirth, and resilience through the cycles of change. She is a herb for all people and all seasons of life.
The Wisdom of Adaptogens
Ashwagandha belongs to a special class of plants called adaptogens, herbs that help the body adapt to stress of every kind, whether physical, mental, or emotional.
Unlike stimulants, which push the body harder and leave us more depleted, adaptogens restore balance. Ashwagandha nourishes the adrenals and calms the stress response, easing us out of the constant fight-or-flight mode so many of us live in. She brings steady energy during the day and encourages deeper rest at night.
Her medicine comes from a group of compounds called withanolides, named after the plant herself. Modern research has confirmed what Ayurveda has taught for millennia: ashwagandha lowers cortisol, our main stress hormone, and supports resilience, mood, memory, and focus. She has been studied for improving athletic performance and muscle strength, supporting a healthy thyroid, strengthening immunity, deepening sleep, supporting male fertility, and protecting brain cells from oxidative stress. Science is simply catching up with the wisdom that healers and gardeners have carried for thousands of years.
What Makes Her So Special: The Paradox
What I love most about this plant is her paradox. She gives energy, yet helps us sleep. She calms anxiety without sedating. She strengthens immunity without overstimulating it. She balances hormones without forcing the body in any one direction. She is both masculine and gentle, both horse and sage.
This is the true genius of an adaptogen. She doesn’t tell the body what to do. She helps it remember how to find its own center. In a world that constantly pulls us out of balance, ashwagandha reminds us what equilibrium feels like.
Five Generations on This Land
What makes ashwagandha even more meaningful to me is that we are now about five generations into growing her on this land. Each season, I let some plants go to seed, collect those seeds carefully, and sow them again. Because we can grow year-round here, she is always with us, cycling through growth, flowering, fruiting, and root harvest.
With each generation, she adapts more fully to our soil, our altitude, and our climate. She has learned the rhythms of this place, and we have learned her preferences in return. This is the quiet magic of seed saving. Every seed I hold carries the memory of the plants that came before it, and every year our ashwagandha becomes a little more Ecuadorian, a little more ours. She isn’t fussy, but she does carry a certain dignity.
Growing Ashwagandha
Ashwagandha loves humus-rich, fluffy, loose soil where her roots can stretch and fatten without resistance. She does beautifully in large, deep pots too. In dense or compacted earth, her roots stay thin and stunted, but in soft soil full of organic matter, they dig in deep and strong, quietly building their medicine underground. There is something so satisfying about loosening the soil with my hands and watching this strong, masculine plant settle in, ready to weave her roots into potency.
She is a sun lover and fairly drought tolerant, which makes sense given her origins in the dry lands of India, the Middle East, and North Africa. Be careful not to overwater her. She would much rather be a little thirsty than sit with soggy roots.
The seedlings start small and tender, then grow into sturdy, bushy plants about knee to waist high that seem to radiate quiet authority. Small yellow-green flowers give way to those lovely papery lanterns, each holding a glossy red berry full of seeds. When the berries ripen and the leaves begin to yellow, usually five to six months after planting, it’s time to harvest.
Digging is careful work. I loosen the soil all around and peel it back slowly until the thick taproots are revealed. The horsey scent rises up immediately, and every time, I hear her Sanskrit name in my mind. I often laugh when I pull them out, their gnarled, twisting shapes full of personality. These roots connect me to every gardener and healer before me who has touched this same plant and trusted her to give strength.
From Our Apothecary
At Living Ground, ashwagandha is one of the cornerstones of our apothecary. We make our tinctures with fresh roots, chopped and macerated in cane alcohol and spring water until their strength is fully drawn into the liquid. Watching the tincture blush red over the weeks is one of my favorite things in the whole apothecary.
The taste is grounding, earthy, and slightly bitter, and her effects are steady and nourishing. On her own, she offers resilience. In formulas, she shines. In our Brain Tonic, she joins other plants to bring clarity, reduce fatigue, and sharpen memory. In our immune blends, she steadies the body under stress so it doesn’t tumble into weakness. She is an herb that plays well with others, generous in how she supports a formula.
How to Take Her
For those meeting ashwagandha for the first time, the effects are rarely immediate. She isn’t a quick fix. Her medicine builds over weeks and months. A few droppers of tincture in water or tea each day begin to work quietly in the background.
At first the changes are subtle: a little more energy in the morning, a little less tension in the evening. Then sleep deepens, mood steadies, and resilience grows. People find they don’t tire as easily and that stressful moments don’t shake them the way they used to. She is like a quiet friend walking beside you, offering a steadying strength you only fully notice when you look back and see how far you’ve come.
In India, ashwagandha is traditionally taken as a warm drink before bed, stirred into milk with honey and sometimes ghee. The fat in milk and ghee is said to carry her medicine deeper into the body. Some people today call this “moon milk.”
Ashwagandha Moon Milk
Ingredients:
1 cup warm milk (I use raw milk from our cows)
1/2 teaspoon ashwagandha root powder, or 1 dropperful of tincture
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
A pinch of cardamom
A pinch of nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ghee (optional)
Honey to taste
Directions: Gently warm the milk in a small pot without letting it boil. Whisk in the ashwagandha, spices, and ghee until frothy. Pour into your favorite mug, let it cool just slightly, and stir in the honey. Sip slowly before bed.
It’s a nourishing little ritual that soothes the body and quiets the mind, like being wrapped in a blanket of warmth and vitality at the same time.
Ancient and Immediate
Ashwagandha connects me to something ancient and something immediate. Ancient, because she has been revered for thousands of years as a plant of rejuvenation, youth, and endurance. Immediate, because I can bend down today, in this very soil, and touch the leaves of a plant that has chosen to thrive here, with me.
Visitors to the garden are often surprised that such a revered herb from India grows so happily here in Ecuador. They lean down to touch her soft leaves, to feel the soil, to taste the tincture. We share seeds and plants with anyone who wishes to grow their own, and in this way her story continues far beyond our fences.
Each new planting feels like a conversation across generations, plant and human weaving resilience together. Every bottle of tincture holds not only the compounds of the root but the story of her growth, her adaptation, and her generosity.
Ashwagandha has truly earned her title as the virility of a thousand horses, yet to me she is also the gentleness of a wise elder. She is potent but kind, strong but balancing, grounding yet expansive. When I work with her, I feel steadier myself, as if she lends me a little of her rootedness.
She has become a true ally for me and for Living Ground. She gives herself freely, root and spirit alike, asking only that we tend the soil well and keep sharing her gifts. For those who come to know her, ashwagandha offers more than medicine. She offers a way of being in the world that is calm, steady, and strong, like a horse that carries you tirelessly forward, like a sage who reminds you to breathe, like the earth itself offering balance in a time of imbalance.
It is my joy to grow her, harvest her, and share her, so that others may feel her strength, her calm, and her joy too. You can find our ashwagandha tincture, seeds, and other creations in our store at livingground.art/store.
