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 :-)