growing ginger......

[Riz]

Growing Ginger can be both fun and rewarding. Rather you choose to grow this plant for ornamental reasons, culinary purposes or its healing properties, this is one plant everyone should try their hand at.


Zingiber Officinale, otherwise known as True Ginger, is the source of Ginger that is used in cooking and also medicinally. The rhizomes of this plant are dug up and ground, chopped or left whole and sent to local grocery stores. In early spring, it is possible to purchase a rhizome of ginger and plant it in your yard. The best rhizome to look for is a fresh, not dried, piece that has one to two inch long sections with well-developed growth buds. Given proper growing conditions, the stems will reach two to four feet tall with narrow, glossy green leaves that can get up to a foot long. Occasionally, your ginger will produce yellowish-green with a purple lip marked yellow flower, although this is rarely seen. Rhizomes may be harvested at any time, but should be allowed to grow for at least three to four months before taking your first harvest.








COMMON NAMES: keong, khing, gung, halia, jahe, luya, shooga
BOTANICAL NAME: Zingiber officinale
FAMILY: Zingiberaceae, the ginger family
PLANT DESCRIPTION
Ginger is a perennial herb native to Asia that grows 1 metre tall with underground rhizomes. The leaves are light green, thin and strap-like. The flowers are green and insignificant. It is native to monsoon forests and requires a well-drained soil, frost-free climate and 1500 mm of rain annually or supplementary irrigation. It thrives best on loamy or alluvial fertile soils and likes the addition of well-rotted manure or compost. It cannot stand waterlogging. Light shade is required, this is provided by pigeon pea in India. In a permaculture system it is a useful understorey plant.

USES
Ginger rhizomes are widely used to flavour cakes, chutneys, curries, candies and beverages. They are sold dry, powdered, preserved in syrup or crystallised. Very young rhizomes, known as stem ginger or green ginger, are peeled and eaten raw in salads, pickled or cooked in syrup. Young, slightly spicy shoots can be used as a vegetable.

PLANTING
Plant in spring, when the soil has warmed up, 5-10 cm deep. Ginger is often planted on ridges, usually about 30 cm apart and with 15-23 cm between plants. The crop is planted by setts (small rhizomes) with one or two buds. Approximately 840 -1700 kg of setts are required to plant one hectare. Expected yield would be 10 to 25 t/ha of fresh ginger.

HARVEST
Rhizomes are harvested about 8 months after planting, when the leaves have yellowed or died. It is possible for the home gardener to just dig carefully at the side of a clump and remove rhizomes as needed rather than harvesting the whole clump.

[Riz]

here is my method of growing ginger.....

You can grow ginger plants from green ginger which you buy from supermarkets, although you are not likely to produce a big crop of rhizomes..

i bought some ginger from the shop and cut the piece in half..

left it in a bowl of water over night and then put it inside a plastic bag (with a hand full of loam based soil/ spraying some water over the soil)and left it on the radiator next to the windowsill




6 days later i got the green finger shooting out from one side

[Riz]

Bury the finger bud upwards in a 20cm pot of loam-based compost. Keep warm and constantly moist during the growing season. Move to a larger pot as the plant grows, (ultimately you might need a 35cm diameter pot if your ginger is growing very well.)

ginger does not like direct light.. so indirect is good for the plant

Once the ginger has started to grow, feed every two to three weeks with a general pot-plant feed.

Given proper growing conditions, the stems will reach two to four feet tall with narrow, glossy green leaves that can get up to a foot long.

Bring the plant indoors before winter and store in a cool, dark place and ignore until spring. The foilage will die back and soil will dry out but should bounce back when returned to the outside the following spring..

Usually healthy, although red spider mite can be an occasional problem. Increasing the humidity by misting plants twice daily with warm water helps discourage these pests.

[Riz]

here is a update on the ginger...

its slow starter as you can see ( if u compare the first pic to this one) but the weather isnt that good at the moment, besides it doesnt like full sun.. so its the shade for her

latest pic...

as you can see the ginger is doing quite well

[Riz]

hi, :)

i am sorry i have not updated in a while. The weather has not been good ( apart from today) so i will leave the ginger out for the next few days, and then i will bring her indoors till spring, i will leave it in a dark warm room, and it should bounce back in the spring.. :cool:

[Riz]

hi everyone.
well the weather here in London is really terrible.

here are 2 pics of the ginger so far, she is indoors now until spring.. i am tempted to dig down and see if i have any rhizomes, but i wont :cool:

The leaf tips are browning, but thats ok :)

[namfon]

Good Luck Riz, It Looks Great

Do you stop watering the Ginger while it is inside now, like Amarylis, Cannas, VooDoo Lillies etc ? the begin watering again in spring ?

[Riz]

hi namfon,

i should have added in my earlier post, i will not give it any water and i will start watering it back in spring, one more long season and i should have some mature rhizomes

i cant wait till spring plenty of planting to do,

thanks namfon

riz

[randomgreenfingers]

I have started growing ginger in the hope to cultivate 'stem ginger'.
From other sources I have received contradicting advice as to what constitutes the 'shoot'. One website said it was the stem, so to keep adding soil to the top of the plant for the stem to stay white and tender, whereas another site told be the new shoots bulbets were infact considered 'stem ginger'.

Do you know which is which?, or if you could be helpful please will you re-direct me to a site that has greater knowledge in determining the two.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Regards
Miss Random

[Riz]

Hi, miss random
That's a good question :confused: , but bare with us and we will endeavour to find out from other sources, but the "shoot bulbets" in my opinion is the stem ginger,

the older the ginger the more fibrous it becomes, the younger ginger doesnt contain any fibres ,their isnt much info about "stem ginger" on the net from what i can make out, ( you have to harvest your ginger crop early if you want "stem ginger" )
you have great weather in your part of the world i bet you can grow most things out there in sunny spain :cool:

i found a pic and some more info on stem ginger

as you can see clearly the ginger root or "stem ginger"


here is a link.......

http://www.eljap.nl/pages/UK-geschiedenis.html


Riz-

[randomgreenfingers]

If I have done this correctly..... here are two pictures of my ginger plant.
The leaves are very long, yet the plant does not look as 'sturdy' as Riz's.

Will keep you posted of any further progress.

[Riz]

Hi miss random,

It takes a long time for the plant to grow but when it does develop it grows really quick, looks good miss random the slender leaves look healthy, maybe another season of growing and you will be able to harvest the rhizomes, if you are really careful you can dig out the rhizomes you want and leave the plant to grow,


nice pics aswell :)

Riz-

[Riz]

I left the container indoors for 6 months now ( because of the frost ) its in a cool dry place indoors, i will be leaving it out soon in the garden, lets see if it bounces back from last season.

I will be starting some more ginger in early to mid may, so stay tuned for more pics :)

Riz-

[Riz]

my, i had a pleasant surprise today..

just a little recap i started a ginger root i bought from a corner shop last season and in September the leaves withered away and died and i brought it indoors i left it in a black bin liner in a cool dry place and forget about it completely for nearly 7 months.

today i went into the room and i saw inside the black bin liner and too my surprise, it has grown 1 foot without any water or light for 7 months, i was really impressed. i have now given it a good watering and left it in the kitchen, here is a pic of it..

[Riz]

i have been leaving the container outdoors for a couple of hours to harden it off, i had 2 ginger plants in the container, one of them must have withered away, so i should really centralize this, as its around the edge of the container...

[Riz]

the ginger has turned out to be a resilient plant, everyday another leaf unravels even at 18c.. inshallah it will grow really well this season..

[Riz]

the weather in the evenings have been cold, so the ginger plant is looking weathered, but i am sure it will bounce back when the weather is better.. i gave it some tomato feed mixed with water last night...

[Riz]

sorry for not updating for a while, not much is happening with the ginger plant, the cold weather is stunting its growth its been this height for around 3 weeks now, hopefully we will get some decent weather soon..
here are a few pics anyway..

[Kirsten]

COLD weather?? It's about 100 degrees here every day...

My wilting basil plants are jealous.

[~Obsidian~]

Did the plants bounce back in the end? When you left it for 7 months....the plant in the picture you showed there, was it etiolated?

[Riz]

Did the plants bounce back in the end? When you left it for 7 months....the plant in the picture you showed there, was it etiolated?

yes it did and it was a suprise to me aswell as i put the container in a black bin liner in a spare bedroom over the winter, it wasnt totally etiolated but it did look a bit more of a lighter green..;)

[Riz]

COLD weather?? It's about 100 degrees here every day...

My wilting basil plants are jealous.

If we had them kind of temps i would grow some plam trees and cycads in my garden :)

[Riz]

another pic of the ginger plant in its second season growing outdoors in u.k

Its looking weathered huh ! lol

[Riz]

Had a look at the ginger plant today, it hasnt grown since the last pic i uploaded... not had a summer this season atall.. ill bring the plant indoors in september sometime,, ill take another final pic later on..

[Riz]

I am going to bring the ginger plant indoors in a couple of days,, It hasnt been a good season for the ginger it hardly grew over 12inchs, its outside right now feeling sorry for itself..

[Riz]

This is the last pic of the ginger plant for this season its going indoors in a cool dry dark place untill next may...

[Kirsten]

I saw a ginger plant for sale when I got my aloe and thought of yours!

[Riz]

I saw a ginger plant for sale when I got my aloe and thought of yours!

they will grow well in your climate i feel.

its indoors now, you are not really going to get lots of rhizomes if you grow the ginger plant in uk. you might get a decent yield after maybe 4 seasons of growing it in a container, the season is not long enough or warm enough even though the ginger likes the shade...

[Riz]

OK so its early February 2009 and the ginger plant i had indoors has sprouted again, with absolutey zero water or anything else, as you can see from the pic how dry the soil is.. :)

in its 3rd season

[Riz]

my ginger plant is almost 3 seasons old, and its still indoors, and its really blooming, green and lush and all this with indirect light and minimum watering :)

[Riz]

the ginger is still indoors near a bay window, it has sprouted another stem :)

[Riz]

update on the ginger...

it hasn't got this big in the last 2 seasons.. so well happy :)

[edibles]

wow, it looks strange and nice.
will you ever harvest, how do you harvest?

[Psypomp]

Great job so far! Have you used any yet?
A question- what is the plant sitting behind the ginger? With the strange radial leaf formations...

[Riz]

Not yet..

In uk its mostly grown as an ornamental plant. ive been growing this for 3 season and i bring it indoors in the autumn and re-introduce it outdoors in may time, or sooner if the weather is good.. i shall check later on in the season to see if any ginger rhizomes have grown and ill report back to you guys :)

and the plant behind it, in the chest is the lupin flower :)

[Riz]

wow, it looks strange and nice.
how do you harvest?

just dig into the pot and pull them up..

or you can break some ginger off carefully and re pot it again.. fresh ginger all the time.....:)

[Tania]

Its really strange-i can't see the leaves only the stem. :o

[Riz]

i harvested my ginger today,, the plant took a lot of abuse from the weather in the last couple of weeks and wasn't looking too healthy, so dug down too see what i could find if anything :)

not bad for growing in uk :)

[sabera.patel]

Wow Riz your ginger plant seems to have done well. I'm going to be planting my first ever ginger this week sometime in a Poly tunnel. I'm hoping to get some crop.

Does ginger attract any pest?

I've started growing garlic and that seems to be doing really well, even with the cold weather we've had.. little storks showing.. :)

Chilli and corriander plants to be started soon in the green house. :)

[Riz]

hi sabera, u sneaked in didn't even noticed you posted :)

the ginger plant needs to be bought inside the house through autumn and winter and then taken out again in mid may.. you will probably get some ginger growing after maybe two seasons, but you will do better in a polytunnel...

did not notice any pests on it, grew really well and healthy without any nutrients and such

[sabera.patel]

Hi riz,

I was intregied by what your ginger looked like, because unless you're a member you can't really see the photo's you've poseted. Maybe they are set to private viewing! :)


Thakns for the info on growing ginger.. I'm hoping to plant mine at the end of April.

Would you know if they grow upwards.. Bacially when growing potatoes you can plant em low in a bucket and layer the compost as shoots come up. Do you know if the same can be done with Ginger?Does ginger only grow vertical, or can it grow horrizontally like potatoes do?

[Riz]

that's because we want people to register :)

NO, you dont need to layer the compost you just bury the ginger rhizome two inches and cover with soil and water in, and that's it, it grows vertical and branches out a little

[rubmanhayat]

Wow Riz. In two season that's all you'd get. It grows really slow!!! That much ginger would be done eating in 1 week ;) What do you think? why didnt' you get more ginger. Was it weather, space or ....??? I think I will try. Can I start now? It's kinda cold but this week was fairly in high 50's to mid 60's :)

[Riz]

Ginger is a low-growing tropical plant which is easily grown indoors during the summer months in the UK. You can grow ginger plants from green ginger which you buy from supermarkets, although you are not likely to produce a big crop of rhizhomes.

Growing outdoors in the tropics, it needs a minimum annual rainfall of 150cm, temperatures of 30°C or over, a short dry season and a deep fertile soil. It usually takes nine months to produce a crop.


i grew it outdoors as an experiment, but if you have a bay window and wish to grow it indoors, please have a go, it will be an interesting experiment.