PLANTING GINGER FOR EATING IN AUSTRALIA - IN POTS
So ginger is probably one of my more expensive culinary delights in my kitchen... i love it... I use so much of it i thought i would grow some.
i USED to grow ginger, back at the old house. In pots and in the ground but its been years.
WHERE AND WHEN TO PLANT
Ginger likes a warm spot with filtered light, humid, and protected from wind, with nice rich soil.
Well draining too.. but kept well watered.
Normally best to plant EARLY in the growing season so spring once the frosts have gone.
Where am I planting it
So i'm running late its November, a good 2 months after i should have planted it. I live in Brisbane, Australia, so sub tropical climate. Hopefully i get enought growing time to produce some ginger. If i don't get as much as i thought, i will just replant it for next year and hopefully i will get a good batch.
I am planting it in a large pot, to which i have added some good compost and a well draining potting mix. It gets morning light, but misses most of the harsh midday sun as its just under the back porch area. I think that should be good.
ABOVE you can see my curry leaf tree :-) its so yummy.... Ive nearly killed it at least 5 times... but it keeps coming back. Its currently in a very small pot you see... lol... just goes to show you can get productive curry leaves without a big tree.
CAN I USE SHOP BOUGHT GINGER?
YES YOU CAN!
I have done so in the past, and plenty of friends have as well. You CAN order from a store if you want to thought.
My ginger costs me about $40/kg here at the moment and i am planting 170grams of ginger. so its just under $8 worth of ginger.
HOW TO PREPARE THE GINGER
Ginger sends up shoots from the little "eyes" buds that appear on the ginger, so you want pieces that have lots of those. The less "snarly" and "fresher" those appear the better.
I have heard it is best to soak the ginger in case the sprayed it with anything, but if you have organic that might be best. (but still soak it)
This is regular Coles and Aldi mixed together ginger. :-)
Chop the Ginger
Chop it into little pieces with one or two "eye" buds on each piece.
keep the bigger bits with no eyes to EAT YOURSELF... lol...
don't plant bits that are not promising... eat them...
as you can see i'm not planting everything i bought today
again i am planting about 180grams or so of ginger.
I weighed it so i can weight my harvest in a few months time (Hopefully)
PLANTING
As above, choose a spot that is in good rich soil that is free draining and kept well watered.
filtered light and sheltered
Plant the rhizomes about 10 - 15cm under the surface and water in. Best if you have buds on two sides plant them horizonal so the shoots can come out both sides. Rather than planting one set of buds facing up and one set facing down.
Make sure they are not sitting in totally boggy soil at the time, as you don't want to rot the rhizomes before the start to shoot.
NOTE : i put more soil over the top of these to make sure they were at the correct depth a good 5 - 10cm ish.
Here you can see my pot garden... awaiting the planting of the big beds. They will be down the back in the back far right corner that is weed and stone central. But nice access to a huge water tank though...
as they are planted a bit underground they CAN take a while to shoot. it says 2 weeks ish, but i remember the first time i planted it was like a month and i thought i had killed the lot. Was about to rip it out and i put my hand in the soil and pulled soil away to see they had all started sprouting. so i covered them back up and hoped my impatience had not killed them.
it didn't and i got about 3kg of ginger out of that pot! most impressed
Future updates
I'll keep you all updated...
we are on a mission to make out suburban block more "edible" having just removed ALL the nasty Yukka trees planted in silly spots, ( on top of delicate retaining walls) and are re planting and landscaping as we go.
so much fun.
Thanks for reading.
Anyway thanks so much for stopping along and reading my posts I am just loving my HIVE experience so far. Such a fun platform for sure.
For those that don't know my i'm currently focusing on Daily painting and somewhat amusing my self and my family with Acrylic pouring.. lol.. i wish i had a separate studio for that as it is so messy.
My other HIVE interests are:
- cooking
sunset photography (i take photos of the sky every night)
Art
Graphic Design
Gardening (just a smidgion)
Ballet
Sewing - I make Tutus and ballet costumes too...
Here are a couple of snaps of some of the stuff i do outside what you see up in the posts above.
