Susan W
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Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2009 2:46 pm
Location: Memphis, TN

Ginger

Just FWIW, have one ginger pot, mostly ignored. I don't harvest much. It's outside shade summer, inside winter.
For those of you growing for more, can one start and have young green shoots, then transplant to larger pot or ground? Outside of sub tropics not so good in ground. I'm looking at the pretty ginger root in the store (got some yesterday) and perhaps starting in 2.5 qt pots, inside. But, once up needs more and can one transplant?

imafan26
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Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Ginger needs room to grow unless you just want it ornamental. Edible ginger should have a wide deep pot like a 5 gallon bucket. Put a couple of inches of good potting soil with vermicast if you have it in the bottom of the pot. Put the ginger in the bucket so that the eyes or shoots face up. It is hard to plant ginger with shoots nicely since they bend easily, I cut them off. Try to plant them so the narrow side faces up. YOu can get three or four in a pot that way. Only add enough soil to just cover them. As the ginger grows you can add more soil on top to just cover them.

I used to plant them with the wide side up but they grow to the edge of the pot and stop so someone told me to plant them the other way instead and to start from the bottom so they expand up instead. Ginger fertilization changes with each stage
10-30-10 as a starter. It provides the high phosphorus the ginger likes in the beginning at shoot emergence
Then for th next 2 months, you want to switch to a balanced fertilizer at 4 week intervals. 14-14-14
As the plants mature around 7 months down the road you can add K 0-0-26 supplements to get firmer roots and skins.

These are recommendations for ginger grown in the ground in Hawaii. Our soils require high phosphorus because of high aluminum and iron concentrations that bind phosphorus.

If you are growing in pots. You want to use a fertilizer that has a higher phosphorus when the shoots emerge. For the next two months you switch to a balanced fertilizer and in the end a potash supplement.

Chicken manure, or any manure and compost in pots does not work well for me. It actually is too strong and kills plants. Vermicast is ok if only a couple of handfuls are added. Ginger does not tolerate nematodes, compost needs to be from a clean source. In my pots I use potting soil and vermicast if I have it. For good root crops the soil should not have excessive amounts of nitrogen and pH should be slightly acidic.
https://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/growing-ginger.html

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applestar
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Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Fantastic! My ginger is dormant right now and I was wondering what I should do when they start growing. Thank you @imafan :-(). So glad you started this thread @susanw :()

p.s. I just cut a piece of the root off this morning for making curry. I love having the pot in the house during the winter. 8)



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