Coronavirus, Covid 19 Discussion and How It Has Affected Your Daily Life Chat Thread

[electrycmonk]

and in other news..... this is a very cool woman!

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/science/linda-zall-cia.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab

 

[SnapdragonQ]

I've got several pots in dormant protection, in pots.... About to make some small pot starters on a SS rack with room for seedlings to boot here in the coming weeks....

Hope you can snag some picks from the dug up growths....

I did get some...

OK. I'm intrigued!

What do I have to do to start my own backyard ginger plantation? I'm in a dry Mediterranean climate with dense clay soil but I have some above the ground veggie beds with actual soil.

its about as difficult as making a cup of Hot cocoa. (giggles)

remember above all else sunshine is paramount and as @ChocolateMouse says.... keep watered but, don't drown them. Maybe we can get CM to share a recent picture or two or a late shot from a while back? I might have time tomorrow during day light to show what my late fall experiment reached before going dormant?

ETA, i have a few buds sprouting on the countertop that I plan to experiment with - as said above.... I'll likely be able to snap some picks as i put them in pots...

NO! No heavy sunshine... Bright bright shade or very dappled/filtered sun!!

It aint me! It's snappy. I've never grown ginger. :O

You need to!

I have some leftover ginger trying REALLY hard to grow. What type of soil do you use and what are the planting/starter instructions, please?

Details coming...

/facepalm... sorry yall!

Goober! And after that book I wrote you??
**hand on hip**


Ok, bear with me...I'll pull the info and pics...

 

[SnapdragonQ]

Ginger- treat it as a rhizome...more like irises, not like a bulb such as garlic.
The glob of ginger is called hands. Think a fat base like your palm (but smaller) with fatter short fingers.

1. buy FRESH organic ginger. The skin should be smooth with a slight green tinge (if possible) and no shrively stuff. Organic is not sprayed with a growth deterrent like regular ginger is.
It should look more like this, and if it has little nubs on the fingers, all the better. Those are the beginnings of buds/shoots.

2. Let it sit in a bright location until you see the nubs/buds swell more, or develop if your hand has no buds on it's fingers. I have southern exposure windows in my kitchen and left my hands right out on the counter for about a month.

I started with 1lb, or several hands. About a day before I planted I cut my ginger into smaller pieces. If mine were shaped like the one below, I would have cut on the blue line-

...to be continue

 

[SnapdragonQ]

Like other rhizomes, ginger likes to spread out. They don't need especially deep pots, but rather decently wide. I started with 10 or 12" pots that are about 6 or 8" deep.
Maybe a wide-ish 2 gallon pot??

I cut my ginger into 4 sections and each cut of ginger fit within the bowl of the palm of my hand. After a day or two for the cuts to dry over, I planted each section in it's own pot. Like rhizomes I planted them horizontal.

Soil- whatever regular bagged potting soil I had handy. You want a soil that will hold moisture but drain well. Ginger likes moisture but does not like to be soggy.

Light- unless you are really really north, ginger prefers really bright shade and not direct sunlight. It's a tropical plant used to competing with other taller plants for light. The front of my house has a southern exposure porch, which has climbing roses in front of it. It created the perfect mix of very dappled sun with really bright shade. The ginger loved it there and grew very well.

Temp- I forget it's preferred zone, beyond being tropical, but for us...it can stay outside in it's bright location so long as the night temps don't go below 50.
For here that meant it could stay outside overnight from about late April until mid-Sept. For the warm days/cool nights I would often bring it in overnight.

Forgive the jungle...but it's the tall skinny plants in bright green plastic pots. This was mid summer, well before any flower buds started. The water jug was a visual for Monk for pot size-

...to be continued

 

[SnapdragonQ]

I'll have to double check on the temps. But all I did was google growing ginger in pots and found a few pages I looked at. Plus one of my gardening books has minuscule info on growing culinary ginger. I'll recheck it too.

And if I remember correctly, I planted about 2 inches deep. I'll double check that too.

Hang on a sec, and I'll post the half dug pics from this past weekend...

 

[SnapdragonQ]

In this pot, the planted section is the flatter part below the tape measure. The growth goes deeper than it appears because I didn't want to dig any deeper, and I could not pull, wiggle, or tug any of it out of the soil.

This section was probably the biggest of all the 4 sections, and when I tried to tug a little on it, it and all the soil came out in a hunk. Not because the soil was dry, but because it has such a healthy root system.
Like the one above, I did not uncover all of it because I did not want to damage it.

When I was tugging on it a small section broke off. It's sittimng on the counter to go into a meal this weekend.

I covered them both back up with the soil I had removed, and they are waiting to go out in the spring and start growing again.
The third and fourth pot still have the stalks on them, though the third is starting to dry up/go dormant, but the fourth is nice and green and looks like it did before I brought them in for the winter.
They are in the windows in the bright front porch.

 

[electrycmonk]

NO! No heavy sunshine... Bright bright shade or very dappled/filtered sun!!

Goober! And after that book I wrote you??
**hand on hip**

Hey, I was giving @IamRainey some very specific geographic reference for this fact: I grew up (formative years) not to far from "Woodland Hills" in So-Cal. You see I am already taking into consideration the filter of sunlight from SMOG in the LA Basin. And also, given the typical yard sizes and zero-lot-lines- I can also assume that it might get 2-3 hrs of direct sunlight - even on the best of days.

Goober it is. I still have to click on ~85% of USER ID's to have quick refresh on folks to make sure I'm not mixing things up....

 

[SnapdragonQ]

Hey, I was giving @IamRainey some very specific geographic reference for this fact: I grew up (formative years) not to far from "Woodland Hills" in So-Cal. You see I am already taking into consideration the filter of sunlight from SMOG in the LA Basin. And also, given the typical yard sizes and zero-lot-lines- I can also assume that it might get 2-3 hrs of direct sunlight - even on the best of days.

Goober it is. I still have to click on ~85% of USER ID's to have quick refresh on folks to make sure I'm not mixing things up....

Oh, sorry.

...I thought the smog is much better than it was back then??

I added notes to the above pictures because I remembered to take notes for you.

You know I call my horse goober...... it's a term of endearment.
Usually.

 

[IamRainey]

I grew up (formative years) not to far from "Woodland Hills" in So-Cal.

Hey! Why didn't I know that?! Howdy, almost neighbor!!!

 

[electrycmonk]

Hey! Why didn't I know that?! Howdy, almost neighbor!!!

(waves) Costa Mesa High School in the 80's.

Oh, sorry.

...I thought the smog is much better than it was back then??

I added notes to the above pictures because I remembered to take notes for you.

You know I call my horse goober...... it's a term of endearment.
Usually.

it is better but, its not "gone".... I've been out there back for reunions in '93(?) & '98 then when I was OTR driving in 2004-'07 and my reference point was saddle back mountain & the foothills around it. even though the air was dramatically "cleaner" the smog was still filtering the sun and the view of Saddleback was less often as I recalled when there. And my Uncle lived out there (Costa Mesa & Irvine, then Forest hills, [what used to be apart of El Toro Marine base] until a few years ago too... so I had that reference point to work with too.

i *totally* caught the use of that term.... as I have only ever heard it in the use of endearment.