Growing a Little Spice in Your Life

How I grew ginger root

Back in 2016 Fedco Seeds/Moose Tubers offered organic ginger root for sale. I didn’t use a lot of ginger but this was intriguing. I ordered a pound of it and when it came in March I prepped it to cure before planting.

I cut the root into weighed 1 – 2 oz pieces and laid them out in a pan in a sunny window for 6 days. I used 6” plastic pots lined with drainage stones and seed starting mix to sprout them. I made sure there was 2” of soil above and below each root, laid horizontally with buds up. The soil was damp but not wet and they need to be kept like that.

I put them in the sunny south window and waited 6 weeks. Nothing. I borrowed a seed starting heat mat in early May and within 10 days sprouts appeared. They really do not like temperatures below 60F at any time.

In the meantime, I had created a brand new New Herb garden in my front yard. The soil wasn’t very good. I put a little hoophouse up and planted the 6 plants inside. I kept them watered and foliar fed all summer.

If the temps dropped to 60 or lower, I kept the house closed. If the temps were high enough, I took the plastic right off.

By early October it was too cold even with the hoophouse closed, so I harvested them. I discovered that there were 2 layers of roots. Deep down was the sprouted root piece. Above it was all new roots with their sprouts. This was the biggest plant. On the left, the old root, the right the new roots.

Here's the entire harvest.

I washed them up. I didn’t weigh them because they had their stalks still, but I think I got about 8 lbs from that 1 lb root.

This year I have 3 pieces in a large pot on a heat mat under high density (HD) plant lights. It’s taken almost a month but they have just come up.