growing ginger in the pacific nw

Does anybody have experience growing ginger in or around cascadia?  The information I've found so far tells me to grow it in a container, but I wanna put it in the ground!  I have some ideas about how to make a warmer area for the ginger to grow, but would love to hear about other human's experiences.

I'm wondering about growing ginger too...

I know they grow it in greenhouses in Bellingham.

urtica wrote:
Does anybody have experience growing ginger in or around cascadia?  The information I've found so far tells me to grow it in a container, but I wanna put it in the ground!  I have some ideas about how to make a warmer area for the ginger to grow, but would love to hear about other human's experiences.

I understand it does grow wild here (Southwest Oregon Coast), try contact a nursery in your area that specializes in native plants.

Sorry but what zone are you in? I started ginger a year ago in the late spring and it came up and grew really well. I wish I would have had taken pictures. Before frost I cut down the dead greens and scattered them on top, then placed more straw on it. I then topped it off with big rocks, to try and insulate the roots. I will know if this was successful this spring, but as far as one growing season goes, it went really well, and it was yummy.

Im in zone 6.

Ive had good luck with Mioga ginger(Zingiber mioga).Mine have proven perennial down to 7 degrees farenhight(zone 6-7 west of the cascades) without mulch and have spread to form a large patch.They are invasive at the Bullocks.You dont eat the roots but the shoots and flowers.

Mt.goat wrote:
Ive had good luck with Mioga ginger(Zingiber mioga).Mine have proven perennial down to 7 degrees without mulch and have spread to form a large patch.They are invasive at the Bullocks.You dont eat the roots but the shoots and flowers.

LOVE myoga!  One could sell that for a good markup at a Japanese or Korean market. 

Ginger is a traditional crop in Japan...which is wet temperate, not so different from the PNW. 

Let it die back and heavily mulch to protect from cold.

"West of the Cascades" is in zone 8.  The following link supplies several growers here (as well as to zones 4-5!).

http://www.eastbranchginger.com/

not sure if this helps ...

https://youtu.be/ukFeQ7qbn8s

Growing ginger in container. The foliage look very beautiful and you get to harvest home grown ginger. Very easy plant to start and grow in containers.

[url=https://youtu.be/ukFeQ7qbn8s]Growing Ginger in containers [/url]

I am trying to grow ginger, and started it inside since it’s raining constantly right now, and I have tried outside before and the rotted on me.
Now I have a different problem. The tips of my ginger turns brown and dies. I have tried spraying them with water so they don’t dry out, and it helped a little, but they are still not looking good. Our humidity is between 40 and 50 right now, since it’s raining so much, so I am baffled by it.
I have turmeric growing next to it, and it’s also having trouble, of the same type.

HELP please!

I'm wondering if it is a light/heat issue. I think of ginger as being dormant in the winter, so maybe they are struggling despite being indoors. Can you give them supplementary light perhaps? This site seems to be a nice write up of the conditions ginger likes. It doesn't seem to be a humidity issue with you, but light or heat conditions may not be optimal.

Nancy Reading wrote:I'm wondering if it is a light/heat issue. I think of ginger as being dormant in the winter, so maybe they are struggling despite being indoors. Can you give them supplementary light perhaps? This site seems to be a nice write up of the conditions ginger likes. It doesn't seem to be a humidity issue with you, but light or heat conditions may not be optimal.

I should have written that I have a 3000w grow light in my nursery. I was lucky enough to find a grow light, that fits perfectly with the size of the room, but it might be heat. The temperature indoors drops to 65F at night indoors.
(I want a rocket heater, but hubby isn’t very good at building things, and neither am I. I have a small heater, but don’t use it at night.

The nursery is a double shower we never used, so after sitting there doing nothing for 5 years, we repurposed it as a nursery. I covered the walls and floor with reflective sheets, added the light, a hose connector and a large planter.
I am currently using the planter as a table for my seedlings, since I have transplanted everything I have in the planter. On the floor next to it, I have two self watering pots, with turmeric and the ginger. Both have brown leaves, but where I have almost eliminated the problem for the turmeric with the misting, it didn’t eliminate it for the ginger, it just slowed it down.
The plan is to move them out into the garden, once it heats up a little more. I am in zone 10b, so while we don’t get any hard frost, we do get it until the beginning of March. Right now, I am just hoping that I can keep them going until March and that moving them outside will solve the problem.
I mainly use the nursery to start seedlings, and propagate cuttings. It usually works fantastic for that, just not the ginger and turmeric. I have added a couple of photos of the nursery.
I think I will add a heating mat to the ginger, in case you are right, that it gets too cold at night.

Ulla Bisgaard wrote:[
The nursery is a double shower we never used, so after sitting there doing nothing for 5 years, we repurposed it as a nursery. I covered the walls and floor with reflective sheets, added the light, a hose connector and a large planter.

Ooh! Nice!

Hopefully the extra heat will do the trick. That's the trouble with indoor plants, nature is so much better at looking after them than we are. You realise how much easier it is to grow what wants to grow naturally than create the right environment for a particular plant. It's maybe worth it for something as useful as ginger and turmeric though!

Nancy Reading wrote:
Ooh! Nice!

Hopefully the extra heat will do the trick. That's the trouble with indoor plants, nature is so much better at looking after them than we are. You realise how much easier it is to grow what wants to grow naturally than create the right environment for a particular plant. It's maybe worth it for something as useful as ginger and turmeric though!

It is. I have tried growing it outside before, but it never got big enough before the temperatures went over 85F and then they die on me. That’s why I started them inside early. I am hoping that this time, they will be big enough to handle the sun, once it really hits after summer solstice. It’s the same with turmeric.
I use a lot of those two plants when cooking and making medicine, which is why I want to grow them. I go through 6 pounds of ginger a year, on average.

I've thought about trying to grow ginger, but the lack of a greenhouse and other priorities had put it well down the list until my son's girlfriend showed up with a ginger root she'd left on her counter and it started to grow. She's a lovely, sweet girl, and she hoped I could give the little ginger baby a chance...

So I found a roomy pot - nothing pretty as I've no idea how this is going to turn out!
I put some homemade biochar and some punky wood in the bottom, then I packed duck-shit-inoculated wood chips around the punky wood and up a couple of inches.


Then there was a pot full of dirt in the garden - the plant got chewed by a deer and then died, so I dumped the dirt on top to give it some new purpose in life. I planted the baby ginger in the center - I hope just half burying it is the right thing to do?


It looked awfully lonely! I had some "cut and come again" lettuce that was too crowded, so I dug up one corner of it, separated it gently, and put them around the edge. They won't live a long life so I have time to contemplate if there are other companion plants for ginger that I could consider adding. Would it like a few heat loving bush beans come July?


My fingers are crossed. It would have landed in the compost, and now it has a chance. I had nothing to loose by trying this. I'm assuming I need to dig it up this fall and if there's any ginger root for the winter, that will be great. If I just get a bit of experience with ginger, that's not a loss either.