Zingiber officinale
ginger
At a glance
- Light
- Partial shade
- Spacing
- 25 cm, rows 30 cm
- Lifespan
- Perennial
- Planting
- Feb–Mar
- Harvest
- Oct–Nov
- Hardiness
- Cold damage below 5 °C
- Water need
- High
Photo: Venkatx5 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
This description was machine-translated.
Description
Ginger is a tropical herbaceous perennial whose spicy‑sharp rhizome flavors kitchens and teas. In the DACH region it is grown as an annual pot plant because it requires warm, frost‑free conditions year‑round. From a single piece of tuber a fresh harvest develops over the summer.
Care instructions
Place a healthy rhizome piece with sprouting buds flat in moist, humus‑rich soil in February. Keep the pot warm at a minimum of 20 °C. Maintain even moisture and move the pot to a warm, partially shaded spot from May onward. Fertilise regularly in summer and harvest the rhizome in October or November when the foliage turns yellow.
The care notes were machine-translated from German.
Garden year
PlantingFeb–Mar
HarvestOct–Nov
Soil & site
Soil pH
Soil type
humus-rich, well-drained, moist, nutrient-rich, lime-avoiding
Ginger needs loose, humus-rich and free-draining soil that stays evenly moist, because waterlogging makes the rhizomes rot. It likes it slightly acidic (pH 5.5 to 6.5); strongly chalky, alkaline soils are less ideal, but are not a strict exclusion as they are for true lime-haters.
Feeding
Heavy feeder
Months
Mar–Aug
When planting, work plenty of ripe compost in beneath the growing medium. Feed the plant organically at regular intervals during the growing phase (roughly April to August), for example with horn shavings or diluted compost liquid feed. From September, stop feeding so that the ginger can move into its dormant phase.
Overwintering
Ginger is not hardy and does not tolerate frost. Bring the pot indoors before the first frost and, once the leaves have died back, keep it dark, cool and frost-free, or dig up the rhizomes and store them dry in sand in a cool place. From February, move the pot or rhizomes back to a brighter, warmer spot and water carefully so that new growth starts.
Propagation
Methods
- Division
Propagate ginger by rhizome division only. In late winter or early spring (from the end of February), take a fresh, plump ginger root with clearly visible buds (eyes). With a sharp, clean knife, cut finger-shaped sections at least 5 cm long, each piece carrying at least one bud; keep the cut surface as small as possible. Leave the fresh cut surfaces to dry in the air for two to three days so that the cuts do not rot. Then lay the rhizome pieces flat (about 2 to 5 cm deep) in nutrient-rich, free-draining soil in a pot with drainage holes and a drainage layer. Keep the soil evenly moist and place the pot somewhere warm (ideally 23 to 28 °C, at least 20 °C) and bright, for example on a south-facing windowsill. The first shoots often appear only after several weeks. In the climate of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, ginger grows in a pot and overwinters indoors, frost-free. In autumn, you let the plant die back and overwinter the rhizome warm and dry.
For your garden
Grow ginger yourself
Gartenkern tells you when frost is coming, when to sow and when to harvest, for your location.
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