There are many species of ginger, and some are not edible. There are also four species of plants called galangal that are similar to ginger and are used in Southeast Asian cuisine, including Thai foods. They taste significantly different from ginger and can’t be substituted for each other. There are more than 30 species of plants called turmeric that are native to Southeast Asia.
All of these plants are similar, and for the rest of this article, I will just say ginger unless there is a specific difference. For instance, ginger and turmeric are deciduous and galangal is evergreen.
You can buy ginger hands at the grocery store and grow them yourself. The ginger in the store may be treated with a chemical to keep it from sprouting in the store and in storage. If you soak the hands in water overnight, enough of the chemical may be rinsed away to allow for growth.
There is a bacterial disease called “ginger wilt” that kills ginger plants and may be on the ginger from the store. Ginger hands sold for growing new plants should be certified to be disease-free. If you plant infected ginger from the grocery store in your garden and the plants die, you won’t be able to grow ginger in that soil for many years. If you grow your ginger in pots, you can start over with new soil and new pots if the ginger dies.
If you buy certified disease-free ginger, you will get seed pieces. They are kind of like the fingers from the ginger hands. If you buy grocery store hands, you can separate them into seed pieces. Let the cut end of the pieces dry and scab over for a day or two before you plant them. Planting fresh-cut pieces increases the chance of disease organisms getting into the rhizome. Each seed piece should have at least three “eyes” or bumps along the edge that will sprout into new stems. Seed pieces that are too small may dry up before sprouting.
All of these species come from warm, tropical climates. If you live in a warm, tropical climate, you can grow these plants in your garden year-round. If you live in a cold winter climate, you will have to work harder to grow these plants. They need about 10 months of warmth to produce more rhizomes. Galangal is evergreen and may need two years to grow large enough that you can start harvesting rhizomes.
To get an early start on growing ginger, start growing the seed pieces indoors as early as you can, in February or March. There are several ways to start them growing. Soak them in water overnight. Rinse them off with a four-parts-water-to-one-part-hydrogen-peroxide mix. Plant them an inch deep in flower pots or plant trays. They grow sideways, so just lay them down flat on the soil surface with the cut-off end closest to the pot’s edge. The soil needs to be warm to get growth started. Use a horticultural heating pad designed for this purpose.
They can also be left in a wet paper towel and sealed plastic bag until you see growth starting, then they can be planted. Keep the soil damp and not waterlogged. Keep them warm and give them lots of light until they are moved outdoors. They can be planted into soil that is warmer than 55 degrees F. It may be best to leave them in the pots so that they can be brought indoors in the fall to finish growing if the weather will be too cold. They will stop growing new rhizome material when the weather starts to cool and they start to develop flower stalks. Moving them inside while it is still warm extends the growing season.
Fertilize them with a higher-nitrogen fertilizer to promote rhizome stem growth. Use compost in the soil, and if the rhizome starts to grow above the soil, cover it with more compost.
When you harvest the rhizomes, don’t forget that the leaves can also be saved and used.
