Home Grown Ginger

[Going Bhonkers]

Can you share a picture of your plants?

 

[flgardengirl]

Can you share a picture of your plants?

Here is a picture of the edible grocery store ginger in a pot. It will send out these green 'cones' from the cones come tiny flowers. The rhizomes will multiply underground. That is the part that is used for cooking, the rhizome. If you were to grow them in pots and want them to multiply for use. I would put them in large pots with very good draining soil...like potting soil mixed with 1/3 perlite and lots of drainage holes in the bottom. When you want to harvest the rhizomes just dump the pot and break off some rhizomes where they grow together. Then let the rest that you are going to replant, dry out a little or dust them with a little rooting hormone that has an antifungal component to it like Rootone. Then repot again.

 

[flgardengirl]

Just for fun here are some other gingers I grow not in the edible catagory
Globba pink dancing ladies

Globba White Dragon

White Butterfly ginger aka Hedychium (with pink Allamanda) This is a very fragrant ginger flower smells like jasmine or gardenia type fragrance.

 

[Arielle]

FlgardenGirl-- this is a most extrordinary plant. I've never seen anything like it!! The flower though remind me of orchids.

I bought a large rhizome on Monday!!! Now I"m wondering which variety of ginger is in our markets?

 

[destinduck]

Thanks for sharing the pic Flgardengirl. Do those green cones turn kinda reddish colored later? The reason I ask is because i have a plant that looks similar to yours and wanted to know if its an edible one. I got it at a yard sale and the lady said it was a type of ginger plant. The cones hold alot of a water if you sqeese them . I guess thats what it is . I just dont know. Also edited to say you can see tiny white flowers on the cones. I googled it and the best I can tell it is called "pinecone ginger" and you can wash your hair with the juice that comes out of it. now it makes me wonder if I can eat the "root" LOL!

 

[flgardengirl]

Thanks for sharing the pic Flgardengirl. Do those green cones turn kinda reddish colored later? The reason I ask is because i have a plant that looks similar to yours and wanted to know if its an edible one. I got it at a yard sale and the lady said it was a type of ginger plant. The cones hold alot of a water if you sqeese them . I guess thats what it is . I just dont know. Also edited to say you can see tiny white flowers on the cones. I googled it and the best I can tell it is called "pinecone ginger" and you can wash your hair with the juice that comes out of it. now it makes me wonder if I can eat the "root" LOL!

Nice! Yours does look like the pinecone aka 'shampoo ginger'. It is supposed to have a nice smell when you squeeze the cones. People do use it as an ingredient in shampoo in Asia.

The grocery store ginger (Zingiber officianale) cones do not seem to turn red.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/55488/index.html

Pine cone aka shampoo ginger links:
http://www.floridata.com/ref/z/zing_zer.cfm
In this thread people talk about the 'shampoo' lol http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/53328/

 

[flgardengirl]

FlgardenGirl-- this is a most extrordinary plant. I've never seen anything like it!! The flower though remind me of orchids.

I bought a large rhizome on Monday!!! Now I"m wondering which variety of ginger is in our markets?

I bought my 'grocery store ginger' at a farmer's market. I could get several tubers pretty cheap that way. One time I bought a huge bag of them marked down at Save A Lot. They bag up some of their produce sometimes and sell it cheap when its about to go bad lol. The tubers were kinda shriveled so I soaked them in some warm water for a day to rehydrate them and then planted them. They all came up.

You can also buy a tuber from the grocery store called Malanga. It is in the produce section and considered a vegetable. It grows into some neat green on green thick marbled looking elephant ears. I can probably dig up a photo if anyone wants to see them.
The malanga root is supposed to be edible. They are longer and hairy so look a little different than the regular rounder shaped taro elephant ear bulbs. The plant looks a little different too.

 

[destinduck]

Yea Flgarden girl thats what I looked at as well. I looked all over the net . I guess you can eat both kinds I just wanted the edible kind mainly for sushi. Not stomach ache or tea. LOL!

 

[Arielle]

Quote: LOL, since you bought it at the groccery, I expect it would be edible. he he he Is it a starchy root? LIke potato or yam, or is it flavoring like the ginger?

 

[flgardengirl]

No it is not like ginger but tropical looking plant. It is more of a stachy root vegetable. I like finding wierd things at the grocery, farmer's market, or asian/or other ethnic specialty stores to grow in the garden. Last year, I bought some rhambutans, unusual mangos, and fresh coconuts from the farmers market and planted them. I usually order a few cacao pods (chocolate) from puerto rico every spring and then plant the seeds from them. Its really cool the stuff you can find to try.