How to Grow Ginger From Store-Bought Ginger in a Container

Head to the supermarket, a grocer, or a market and dig through the ginger bin. You want big, plump pieces with smooth, taut skin. Leave behind anything shriveled, wrinkly, or dried out, because those old pieces often do not have the energy left to sprout.

Look closely for little pointed bumps on the rhizome. Those are growth eyes, the same way a potato has eyes, and a piece that already has a few is a great sign it is ready to shoot. Organic ginger is a nice bonus if you do not mind paying more, though any healthy supermarket piece will grow.

This is the step most people miss. Supermarket ginger is often sprayed with a growth retardant so it does not sprout on the shelf, and that coating will sit there stopping your rhizome from doing anything. A good soak dissolves it.

Drop your ginger into a bowl of water and leave it for at least 24 hours. That soak washes off the inhibitor and rehydrates the rhizome so it is primed to grow. Do not forget about it and leave it for days, or it will start to ferment. Pull it out after a day, and it is ready to plant.

Grab a wide container or a few pots and fill them with a premium potting mix, leaving a couple of inches of space at the top. Ginger spreads out sideways, so a broad pot beats a deep narrow one every time.

Now divide your soaked ginger into planting pieces. You can break it into smaller chunks to get more plants out of one rhizome, but do not go too small. Tiny inch-sized bits can shrivel and rot before they get going. Aim for solid chunks that each carry at least one growth eye, and they will sprout far more reliably.

Lay the ginger pieces flat on the surface and spread them evenly around the pot, giving each one room to send out roots and shoots. Then cover them with just an inch or two of mix. That is it.

Resist the urge to bury them deep. The rhizome wants to grow sideways near the surface, and planting too deep can slow it down or cause the piece to rot before it sprouts. Shallow is exactly what ginger likes.

Ginger loves water once it is up and growing. Through the warm months Mark waters his container ginger almost every day, because a plant that dries out in the heat will shut down and even start eating its own rhizomes for moisture. You do not want that.

The catch is drainage. Ginger hates sitting in a boggy, waterlogged pot, so a well-draining mix lets you water often without drowning the roots. Early on, before shoots appear, go easy on the water so the rhizomes do not rot while they are getting established. Once the green shoots are up and the plant is in full swing, keep the water steady.

Keep the pot clear of weeds so nothing competes with your ginger for water and nutrients. A layer of mulch on top helps hold moisture and keeps weeds down between waterings.

For feeding, a splash of organic liquid fertilizer about once a month keeps the plant strong. If you planted into a premium mix with slow-release fertilizer already added, you may only need to water in a liquid feed once, around the halfway mark of the growing season, especially after a run of heavy rain that flushes nutrients through the pot.

Ginger takes its time. The growing period runs roughly four to six months, and the crop is ready when the leaves yellow and die back, usually between mid autumn and early winter. Let it grow full term through summer for the biggest harvest.

When the tops have gone brown and dry, cut the stalks off close to the soil line. This clears the way and gets the pot ready to lift. Do not panic if your ginger is slow to sprout in spring or slow to die back in autumn. It runs on its own clock.

Tip the whole container out and break apart the root ball. This is the payoff. One or two supermarket pieces turn into a fat cluster of fresh rhizomes, and it is always a surprise how much a single pot produces.

Rinse the ginger off so you can see what you have. Use the older, tired-looking pieces and any with a spot of rot first, since they will not store well. Set aside a couple of firm, healthy chunks with growth eyes to plant again next season. That is how one store-bought piece keeps feeding you year after year.