Ginger is a great plant for many reasons. It’s delicious, it’s useful, and it’s good for your health too. It also lasts a long time, that makes it not wasted. Whether it’s baking a cake with it, adding it in curries for extra flavor, or making gingerbread cookies with your kids, it’ll add more satisfaction if you’ve grown it yourself.
Due to its rare knobby appearance, you might think that ginger is quite exotic and therefore difficult to grow, however, it is actually very easy to grow in your own home. All you need is some fresh ginger, a cup of compost, and a sunny window.
The best thing is that you can cut part of the root when you need to use it, without causing damage to the plant, so go for new roots for the best results and follow these steps.
Growing your own Ginger at home
- Look for plump tubers with numerous sprouts.
- Plant the ginger in spring when warm temperatures can be managed either indoors or outdoors. Dormant tubers germinate only when the mercury reaches 23 to 30 ° C (75 to 85 ° F).
- Soak the tubers in warm water overnight, and then put them in the pot just below the surface of the soil, evenly spacing them, sprouts facing up.
- Place the pot in light and shade, indoors or outdoors, depending on the temperature.
- Add water lightly at first, then more heavily when growth begins. Keep plants dry in winter when they are dormant.
- Move plants outside only when temperatures have reached 50 ° F (10 ° C). In colder climates, growth may stop.
- Protect plants from strong winds, and move them indoors at the first sign of cool temperatures.
- Expect the plants to reach maturity, and a height of 2 to 4 feet (30 to 60 cm), in 10 months to a year.
- Dig up the new young shoots that come out in front of the main plants (they form their own tubers), use what you need, and freeze or replant the rest.
- Cut young and tender stems at any time.
Your ginger plant will be ready for harvest in the spring, or you can let it grow during the next summer for a larger harvest. When you’re ready to harvest, gently lift the ginger plant off the ground. If you want to keep growing the ginger root, break off a portion of the ginger root that has foliage and carefully replant it.
The rest of the ginger root can be used as a crop. Break up the foliage and wash the ginger root. The ginger root can be broken into smaller pieces for ease of use. If you follow these steps on how to grow ginger, your supply can be grown and harvested endlessly.
Now that you know how to grow ginger root, you can enjoy its incredible flavor in your favorite recipes.
