There’s never enough ginger – in summer it’s great for lemonades, to make popsickles or just to put in your water, in winter we use it to make tea and it’s also indispensable when I want to make my favorite Indian meal – butter chicken. I’m so glad that the ginger is doing well on our window although I grow it without much experience.
I read about putting the ginger in water before I put it in the earth but I skip this step as I found it innecessary. I have the ginger plantes on a north-oriented window and it’s doind so well that I can harvest several times a year although if I want the real big harvest I have to wait till fall. Here’s how I do it:
When it comes to cooking I want a piece of ginger as smooth as possible to peel it easily. However, for planting I need a piece with buds to sprout. I put it in the earth as I bring it from the store and I leave the buds over the earth. How I prepare the planter: I put about 5 cm of sand at the bottom, the rest is soil, nothing special, sometimes I just dig some soil in our garden. The planter is on the north window as I said, when we put it on the south window, it gets dry. Ginger likes a lot of water, that’s why I water it a lot and the excessive water goes away easily thanks to the sand at the bottom of the planter.
It takes about 3 weeks until the buds sprout green.
When they do and they start growing, I can put my finger in the soil and usually feel that some new root has already grown. It’s too soon to harvest at this point but if it was absolutely necessary, I could already cut a small piece of new root.
This is a new root taken out too soon – see the small lump? If I let the ginger grow longer, that lump will become a huge new piece.
And this is a fully grown plant that is starting to turn brown. When the leaves dry and turn brown, that’s the time to harvest, this happens in autumn. However, I harvest basically in any season of the year because I plant new pieces often and somehow they grow, mature and turn brown all the time. And I admit, sometimes I harvest when the plant is still green.
The ginger that I grow at home has a stronger aroma and taste than the ginger from the stores. If you are a ginger fan, try to grow it at home, it’s easy and rewarding.
