Friday, December 24, 2010

Growing ginger

I love ginger for many reasons. This season I have decided to grow my own...I mean - if not why not? I also plan to grow garlic later in the autum, but ginger can be planted now.

Ginger is great for my curries and Thai cooking that I love, but is also good for any sort of digestive complaint from nausea to indigestion. Add to that list that it is good for fungal infections and intestinal parasites! Ginger is a super healing food when it comes to colds and flu too.

I bought a nice root of it from the grocery store and then snapped it off at the necks. Keeping it out on the counter for a couple of days dries the open ends and also stimulates the growth of buds. You can see the pinky green one in this photo.

Later today I will dig in lots of compost in the chosen spot and plant the root (tuber). As ginger is a tropical plant it needs lots of moisture and filtered light. I have just the spot.

Then it should take about 8 - 10 months before harvesting. I will gauge this by the foliage which should die back towards harvest time. I can't wait :-)

3 comments:

tansy said...

i've been growing ginger for several years now but haven't harvested any yet...i live in a temperate climate and it always dies back in the winter. the first year, i threw it out thinking it was dead, then i read it had just gone dormant. so, the last 2 years, i've been growing it and just letting it sit when it goes dormant. i'll check the rhizomes this fall when i bring it back inside.

now i'm trying my hand at growing turmeric...it's in the same family and grows very similarly...

Lois Evensen said...

Very interesting. I love ginger, but we don't live where we can grow it ourselves. We have a wonderful market nearby where we can get fresh ginger root which is so much nicer than the dried or ground form. We love ginger candy and bring it on the ship with us. We don't get seasick, but those who do find it helpful to use ginger to combat seasickness.

Nice post.

Urban Homestead South Africa said...

Tansy, you should be able to harvest good rhizomes from the edges.

Lois, I have meant to ask about the ship living...is this a job or pleasure, sounds fascintating either way.