The deep root before winter

September is when the wise gardener stops planting and starts mulching. The light is still warm but the nights are telling the truth, and the season of colds is six weeks off. This is the month for the deep tonics, the ones that build rather than fight, and they must be started now because they are slow. Astragalus, the yellow leader, thickens the wall the body keeps against the wind; reishi and maitake, the two mushrooms, teach the defences their manners; codonopsis restores the strength that the summer spent; schisandra holds it in; licorice ties the knot. Take it daily through the autumn and stop it the moment a real cold arrives, since these are not the plants for an open fight. Its stars run in a long arc across the Chinese quarter of the sky, which is where most of them were first named.