Growing ginger

Now I think I've already grown two of the cutest "gingers" known to man (i.e. Danny and Mary Grace!) but this post is strictly about the ginger plant.  Thanks to several pins on Pinterest, I've seen that growing your own ginger is very easy to do!

I started by taking the freshest ginger root I could find at the store and soaked it in warm water for about two hours.  Most of the Pinterest posts skip this step, but it's a root, a dried root, and a good soaking is a really good idea in my opinion.

I broke the root into two pieces and planted them in two different beds in the garden.  The bed in the upper picture remains moist, is partially shaded, cool, and heavily mulched.  The bed in the lower picture has super rich soil that is well drained and gets lots of hot afternoon sun.  We'll see which environment the ginger prefers!

I am very excited to grow our own ginger.  It has such wonderful health benefits and tastes so good!  If I'm lucky enough, I may be posting soon on making our own ginger beer...YUM!