Good thing I'm growing Ginger in a container this year

[imafan26]

My ginger is blooming now. It will be time to harvest soon. It is blooming a little earlier than normal for me.

Ginger is sensitive to day length for me. It will always bloom at this time of year and the tops will die down a couple of months later.

I have to harvest ginger after the tops die down or they will be all over each other. I put the pieces in a bucket or tray with some sand or peat moss and I water it only to keep it damp. I was watering my orchids earlier this year on the table and forgot the bucket was under the table and it got filled with water and drowned my leftover pieces.

I was told that it was possible to get two harvests from ginger here. They actually only need 5 months to grow. The first harvest would be mid year when the pieces are big enough, the top won't die down. It only blooms once a year.

Seed pieces should have good eyes and I made the mistake of putting too many pieces in the container. I spread them out in 4 container this year and I oriented them vertically to see if they will grow down. When I plant them with the hand flat, it just grows sideways until it hits the side of the pot and the space in the bottom of the pot is not used. I need to get a wider but shallower pot so it has room to spread out. One 7 gallon pot already is having the side being pushed by the root.

[thanrose]

Interesting observations, imafan. I always thought it was something I was doing wrong to get blossoms on edible ginger so late in the year. I know the alpinia genus gingers bloom a couple times of year. Zingiber zerumbet (awa puhi) blooms mid summer with the red cones starting in September.

[rainbowgardener]

So somewhere after the last post, my ginger plants died back and I spaced out and forgot about them. One of them, as you would expect, died and is rotten. The other one over-wintered and is now growing and leafing out!

It was a colder than usual winter, with a number of nights in the 20's. I didn't know it could do that.