Friday, September 17, 2010

Zone 4 Ginger



Preparing plants to spend the winter indoors has become a regular garden task now. This pot of ginger spent the summer up to its rim in a bucket filled with water. On clear days the water level in the bucket would drop more than one inch. Blogger Sunita from India told us that ginger was a crop that flourished during the monsoon season. Apparently keeping potted ginger in a bucket of water is something like the water level during monsoon season. This is the first year that we have had any real success growing ginger.



Fearful that the growing ginger would break the pot, we decided to thin and re pot our crop. Young shoots continue to appear on this immature plant. The brown skeleton on the left is all that remains of the rhizome we planted. Overcrowded is an understatement for this rampant growth.




This is our harvest. Smaller younger plants were selected for a return to the pot. Space constraints limit us to one indoor pot of ginger. The rest we will eat. Gingered carrots made with some of this ginger were part of tonight's evening meal. Purchased ginger root leaves nasty fibers on the grater. Our fresh ginger had no fibers.



A larger pot and a bigger water container has four young ginger plants ready for a sunny warm spot indoors. With any luck these plants will survive winter and perhaps reach maturity next summer. Na Leo sings of ginger leis so there must be ginger flowers. Could that possibly happen here?

5 comments:

Dirt Gently said...

I would love to grow it on my zone 5 balcony garden so that I can have fresh ginger whenever I need it, and not have to constantly throw away shriveled up roots that were bought then forgotten.

Did you start your plants from grocery store stock, or did you buy them somewhere else?

Becky said...

They came from the grocery store, or the health food store. The important thing is to find a healthy piece with signs of new growth.

Dirt Gently said...

Nice. I've been planning to do the same with lemongrass. Off to chinatown ...

Unknown said...

Would love an update on this. Have a healthy potted ginger plant but have read that they require a period of dry winter dormancy.

Unknown said...

Wow very good😍