Growing Your Own Ginger

 

 

This is something I'm sure most people know about but since I met a young man who didn't know it, I thought I would pass this along. 

 

As a witch who lives through winter, ginger is a very important part of my medicine chest.  I use it for many things; flavoring,  ginger ale, upset stomach, fire cider, pickled ginger, ginger candy (and then ginger sugar) ginger snap cookies, etc...but a big thing I use it for in the winter it to warm the body up.  A big cup of ginger spice tea will get the circulation going after a long morning out shoveling snow (or sledding).  I always have ginger on hand, but I haven't bought any in years.

 

I grow my own.  It's really easy to do.  Just go out and buy fresh ginger root (actually a rhizome) that has at least a couple of nubbins on it.  These nubbins (some people call them eyes like potatoes) are a new plant just waiting to burst from the root.  Plant the root down about and inch, inch and a half in good composted soil and wait.  Here's the catch, it takes anywhere from a year and a half to two years for your ginger to reach maturity.  For most of us on North America this means we can't plant them outside.  Certainly not in Wisconsin. 

 

 Luckily they grow very well in pots. The pots don't need to be especially deep, the rhizome doesn't grow down that much, just out.  The bigger around the pot (or whatever kind of container you use) is, the more you will get from your harvest.  So you can use any container that is shallow but big around and drains.

 

After you have harvested your ginger, you can cut off a part of the root that has a couple of nubbins on it, put fresh compost into your pot, and replant that section of the root.  Then carefully clean off the remaining part of the root and there's your ginger.   

 



I actually have several pots going at all times (I think I have 21 right now), and I stagger my planting so that they come ready for harvest every month or so.  Then I just replant part of the rhizome in fresh compost and get the next one growing for harvest in the future. 

I started doing this because I usually buy from the Amish and they don't carry ginger.  When I looked in the big city (LaCrosse, WI) for fresh ginger all I could find came from China.  I don't know what kind of poisons they are allowed to spray on their fields.  So I found an organic source and started growing my own.  It's really easy to do except that it takes a long time for it to be ready to harvest.  It can't get too cold so during the winter so I have ginger pots (as well as many other herbs) scattered around the inside of my home.  It can't get too hot (I killed one by leaving it in one of my greenhouses on a hot, sunny day), and they are heavy feeders.  I often put at little compost tea on the pot throughout its growing period.

Anyway, by growing your own ginger, you will know exactly what goes into the plant (no chemicals) and once you get going, you may never have to buy it again.

Ginger bug living and growing on the window sill getting ready for another batch of ginger ale.  This hot summer we have been going through ginger ale like crazy.

 

Fire cider, a wonderful immune system booster, cold fighter, and cough medicine with ginger as an ingredient

We actually have wild ginger here in Wisconsin and I have a whole hillside of it.  It is a plant of the woodlands, quite small, not usually bigger than 4 or 5 inches tall.  It's heart shaped leaves usually come up in pairs in the spring with the "little brown jug" or small brown flower growing between them.

While not related to oriental ginger, it can be used food-wise and medicinally for all the same things.