Organic Gardening: Spicing Up the Garden with Ginger and Turmeric

As an aspiring market gardener, I'm always on the lookout for empty niches in the local food chain.  One item I have never seen has been locally-grown fresh ginger and turmeric.  I live near Memphis, which has a growing and vibrant food scene, so I thought that might be a good product.

As I have whined about explained before, my soil is heavy clay (called buckshot) so raised beds will be necessary for the lighter soil required by ginger and turmeric.  Fortunately, my son gave me a raised bed kit for Christmas.

As far as I know, certified organic seed ginger and turmeric is only available on the mainland from East Branch Ginger.  I placed my order back in January and the white ginger variety had already sold out within 6 hours.  I ordered yellow ginger and turmeric and received the order in early March.  Because our growing season is not as long as in Hawaii, they recommend pre-sprouting which I wrote about in April.

The trays have been stacked on the counter in my laundry room since then, seemingly doing nothing.  In the meantime, I have been agonizing over the location of the raised bed.  Suddenly, two weeks ago, shoots began appearing in the trays.  I had to make a decision.

The shoots appeared after two months.

It's time to transplant.

So, on Saturday we put the frame together and placed it on the south side of the house near the orchard.  We have voles and armadillos, so we lined the bottom of the frame with hardware cloth.  Because the grass is so invasive, we lined the frame with gardener's cloth as a weed barrier.

Untreated 2x12s with the corners were assembled in the shady garage.

Thirty bags of organic humus and four bags of Black Kow Manure later, the bed was finished!

I dug 4" trenches on 24" centers (which means two long rows 12" in from the edge of the bed).  I also sprinkled pelleted gypsum to aid in nutrient uptake.

The ginger roots look like starfish!

While the kit came with a round soaker hose, I substituted my preferred flat hose so it can be arranged better.

Round soaker hoses will take higher pressure,
but they just will not arranged easily.

Now, I must keep them moist but not wet, and feed them often.  Check back for progress reports!

What's growing in your Savory garden?

Nancy