Growing ginger is not that difficult to practice but it asks for your patience of 7 to 9 months till harvesting. Ginger can grow in containers easily outdoors if you use the right plantation method and be aware of the basics of it.
Apart from growing it, you may also face some issues of pest attacks on ginger which start rotting it with time.
Don't worry, I'll guide you here with every aspect of growing ginger in containers.
How to grow Ginger in pots?
Unlike other plants ginger neither grow with seeds or bulbs. It grows with genuine ginger cuttings that have nodes and sprouts.
These sprouts can come up easily if you keep them in a moist area for a couple of days otherwise soak them overnight.
Let's understand its growing conditions and then I'll share the method of plantation ginger.
Season of Growing Ginger
You can start ginger plantations from early spring to late spring. Ginger gets comfortable with the atmosphere with temperature increase after plantation.
Soon it starts producing leaves and continues to grow.
After a patience time of 7 to 9 months, ginger becomes ready to harvest. So if you sow it in spring, you'll harvest it either in late fall or winter.
Growing ginger in fall is not a good idea because when the frost comes, it can't survive the conditions. Also, ginger doesn't get enough temperature and sunlight intensity to grow well and get its peak.
Although it is anytime possible to grow indoors if and only if you can create such conditions indoors or in the greenhouse.
Growing conditions
- Soil type- Rich soil with proper drainage
- Sunlight- 2 to 4 hours in summer and more with temperature decrease
- Temperature- 55F to 80F
- Climate- Warm or cool climate(moderate)
Requirements to grow
Tools required
- Planter tool
- Cutter
- Harvesting Knife
- Scissors
Materials required
- Compost
- Sand
- Garden soil
- Ginger cuttings
Container type
For ginger growing, you should have a wide container because of the expansion of ginger roots. For that, you can use a 30 inches wide and 60 inches long container for 10 to 15 cuttings. The container depth should be 8 to 10 inches at least and the container should have proper drainage holes.
Steps of Growing Ginger
Step 1- Soak the ginger cuttings overnight
If you buy ginger from the supermarket then you shouldn't sow it directly in the soil container. You should prefer to soak it at least for 12 to 15 hours in freshwater.
Keeping the ginger in water develops the sprouts in the whole ginger. Otherwise, you can keep it in a moist area for a couple of days to let the sprouts develop.
But the quickest way is soaking it.
Step 2- Prepare a soil mixture for cutting nodes
Meanwhile, you can prepare a soil mixture for ginger plantation. For that, you need 2 portions of garden soil, 1 portion of sand, and 1 more portion of compost.
Remember, compost shouldn't have mites or any other pest or it'll damage the ginger.
Mix all the ingredients well and spray some water to increase some moisture in it.
Fill it in the container and prepare for soaked ginger cutting.
Step 3- Cut the sprouts from whole ginger
Next day, check the whole ginger you soaked before. Examine that closely and prepare your cutting tools.
You need to cut sections of each sprout in the whole ginger. It means, that every cut piece should have one sprout in each.
Step 4- Plant the ginger-cutting sprouts
Finally, put the cuttings in the soil such as the sprout should be upwards and the flat section should be face downwards.
Set all the cuttings in the same manner and cover it with a one-inch layer of the same soil mixture.
Spray some water and keep it in sunlight.
Step 5- Ginger cuttings germination
After 10 to 15 days, you'll see the start of the germination process and leaves growing upwards.
From here, you don't need to do much just irrigation and one fertilization when the time comes.
Step 6- Further care of ginger
For a week, let the ginger plants as it is after germination. From here, you need to check the regular soil moisture. If it is getting dry with time, you need to spray some water. Although, every week, 1 to 1.5 inches of water is enough for irrigation. But more repetition of irrigation to wet the soil may rot your ginger.
Fertilize your ginger plants one more time when it gets lack of nutrients but the fertilizer shouldn't have excessive nitrogen.
From the day of sowing, you can fertilize your ginger plants once in the fourth month.
It'll give them a boost but if it starts producing too many leaves, then prune them quickly to shift the plant focus on gingers' health and quality.
Harvesting ginger after 8 months
Finally, after caring for and providing every need to your ginger plants, they'll become ready to harvest after 7 to 9 months.
But how do you know that they're ready? For that, you just have to check the ginger plant leaves from the 7th month. If they start getting yellow at the tip, you will get the answer. From here, you just have to leave them for one more week in direct sunlight and then you can harvest them easily.
To harvest ginger, you just need to grab the whole stems in the bunch and pick them up with ginger roots. In the end, you'll have left ginger with its green portion. Use either scissors or a harvesting knife to cut all the green portions.
Dry them in direct sunlight for a day and then you can store them for longer.