This spring is our first attempt to grow ginger in the garden. We ordered a batch of ginger rhizomes from Fruition and began preparing them on March 12, 2022. In addition to the Fruition ginger, which was rather expensive, we also purchased some ginger root from the grocery store and will attempt to grow from both sources this year.
In preparation of planting, the first step with the Fruition ginger is to divide the roots such that each piece has at least 3 “eyes” and is at least 3 inches long. Upon inspection, some of the eyes were damaged or did not look viable, so several pieces ended up being longer than 3″ in an order to keep at least 3 viable eyes. The total weight of the seed ginger from Fruition is 1 lb 7.25 oz. After splitting the rhizomes, we will leave them for a few days so that the cuts can heal before planting them.
The ginger from the grocery store did not look as fresh as the Fruition ginger, but was the freshest and firmest root that we were able to find. In particular, many of the eyes were dried or damaged, so it is not clear whether they will successfully produce sprouts. We washed the outer skins of the ginger and left it to soak in a bowl of water for at least 8 hours to remove any growth inhibitors that might have been added.
The guidance from Fruition for starting the ginger rhizomes is to first wait for the cuts to heal, then plant the rhizomes in a tray of soil with 2-3″ of soil below and 1″ of soil on top. They recommend a heating pad such that the soil is at least 80 deg F. The soil should stay moist, but not wet, to prevent the rhizomes from rotting.
March 12 – (day 0) divided tubers
March 16 – (day 4) planted tubers, soaked soil from below
March 26 – (day 14) checked a tuber, watered from above (no signs of sprouting yet)
March 31 –(day 19) watered from below
April 6 – (day 25) checked a tuber, first sprout broke ground (commercial tuber)
April 10 – (day 29) many new sprouts quickly followed the first
April 16 – (day 35) large sprouts from both Fruition and commercial tubers, but Fruition now has more sprouts than commercial size. New sprouts are still emerging
April 23 – (day 42) removed the top layer of soil from ginger tubers to inspect them. There are roots growing from the tubers. Fed with a sprinkling of the Fruition fertilizer and added a light layer of sterilized compost before returning the soil on top of the tubers
