Ginger

About 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost date, cut dormant rhizomes into 1 to 3 ounce pieces, each with 1 or 2 growing points, and let the cut faces cure at least 48 hours until they callus. Nest the pieces 2 inches apart in moist coconut coir or potting mix on a heat mat held near 76F, misting every 24 to 48 hours and letting the surface dry every third day. Roots and green tips appear in 3 to 4 weeks. Ginger needs roughly 6 warm months to size up a rhizome, which is longer than the frost-free season almost anywhere in the mainland US, so the crop only finishes if you steal the first weeks indoors. The 48-hour cure matters because an open cut face on a wet rhizome is an invitation to rot.

Move sprouts out when about half of them show green shoots several inches tall, soil temperature is at least 55F, and no sub-45F weather appears in the two-week forecast. Harden off the flat for 7 to 10 days first. Set pieces 2 to 4 inches deep with buds pointing up, spaced about 6 to 10 inches apart, in loose well-drained sandy loam rich in organic matter at pH 5.5 to 7. Ginger is a tropical that wants 78 to 95F and is outright killed by frost. Cold wet soil early stalls the plant and rots seed pieces, so the two-week forecast check protects the whole crop. Go by soil temperature rather than a calendar date: extension transplant dates are written for one region and do not travel.

Water lightly and often while plants establish, then hold the soil around 60 to 80 percent of field capacity for best yields. Do not let plants dry out while they are actively growing. As the weather cools toward the end of the season, cut watering back. Ginger is shallow-rooted and stalls when dry, but free-draining soil matters just as much: waterlogged rhizomes rot, and wet ground favors the bacterium behind ginger wilt, which is why extension calls for a well-drained site. Growth slows as soil cools, so the crop needs less water late in the season.

Starting about 30 days after planting, ridge soil or compost up around the base of the plants to cover the root collar, much as you would earth up potatoes. Repeat as the clump expands and shoulders work their way back to the surface. Earthing up to cover the root collar maximizes rhizome quality, and rhizome shoulders left exposed to light lose eating and market quality. Hilled rows also shed water faster, which suits a crop that will not tolerate standing water.

Correct lime, phosphorus and potassium from a soil test before planting and work in compost. Once growing, apply nitrogen monthly at roughly 40 pounds per acre equivalent, or a balanced liquid feed every few weeks in containers. Ginger carries a single long push of growth over 5 or 6 months with no rest, and beginning growers routinely underfeed it, which shows up directly as a small rhizome.

Walk the planting for yellowing, drooping leaves and stems that collapse without spotting. Pull and remove suspect plants along with the soil around them, and keep off wet infested ground. Buy seed from a supplier that tests for the pathogen, plant on well-drained ground with no previous history of ginger, never site a bed downslope of another ginger planting where runoff can carry the bacterium in, and bring no soil-caked tools, boots or equipment onto the site. Bacterial wilt is caused by Ralstonia solanacearum. UH CTAHR (SCM-8) reports it is present systemically in seed rhizomes as both an active and a latent infection that contaminates seed-pieces when they are cut for planting, so it arrives on the seed rather than blowing in, and it cost Hawaii a 45 percent statewide production loss in 1993. It also spreads on infested soil clinging to hands, boots, tools, tires and equipment, and in irrigation or rain water.

Baby ginger is ready about 4 to 5 months after transplanting under cover, or 5 to 6 months in the open field. Loosen the soil with a shovel, uproot whole plants steadily by the leaves, then cut the pseudostems and roots free of the rhizomes with a hand pruner and wash them. The skin is thin and bruises easily, so handle gently and skip peeling. Mature ginger needs 8 to 12 months, which usually means holding pots somewhere frost-free. Ginger is very sensitive to cold and is killed by frost, so the first freeze is a hard deadline rather than a signal. Pink-tipped baby ginger needs no peeling, but it stores only about 3.5 months refrigerated, against 6 to 12 months for mature rhizomes.

Outside zones 9 to 11, move potted ginger indoors once nighttime temperatures drop below 50F. A 14-inch pot holds about three rhizomes. Once the plant drops its leaves for winter, stop watering entirely and resume only when new shoots push in spring. Ginger needs soil above 68F to grow at all and simply idles below that, so a dormant leafless rhizome is doing no work and cannot use water. Watering it then just rots it.