Ginger - growing at home

Our diet is difficult to imagine without spices. We use them often, and sometimes bothers to run to the store. For example, such plants as ginger and cinnamon, I would like to have more at hand more readily. But the cinnamon is a whimsical plant that will not get accustomed to on the windowsill. Ginger is another matter. Cultivation of this plant in the home is quite possible.

Preparation for planting

By appearance ginger resembles sedge or reed. Its stems reach a height of 100-110 cm, so be prepared that this "grass" will occupy a lot of space in your house. If you put such a plant - for you is not a problem, start preparing.

First of all, we will need a container - a shallow, but wide capacity, in which it will be possible to plant rhizomes. In the pot must be drainage holes. As an underground, you can use an organic mixture for growing vegetables. An excellent option will also be a mixture of turf and leaf land, and sand in equal proportions.

Planting and care

Now let's look at the rhizome. Carefully inspect it - it should not have a dry or frost-bitten appearance. A good rhizome of ginger is smooth and dense, with a silky to the touch skin. Before planting, put it for a couple of hours in warm water. Then gently separate from it a fragment with several live kidneys and put in a pot, sending the kidneys up. There is no need to deepen the root in the earth. The best way to plant is in the spring. Do not put a pot of ginger under direct sunlight or in a draft. The plant is very sensitive to this.

You should also remember about watering. Ginger, the cultivation of which requires frequent watering, is sensitive to both shortage and excess moisture. To the root does not rot, at the bottom of the pot before planting it is necessary to lay drainage from the expanded clay of medium size - about 3 cm thick. Water the plant after the top layer of the soil has dried. Already 10-15 days after planting, you can see the first young shoots. Now the main thing is regular watering so that the plant does not die. Daily or every other day sprinkle shoots: growing ginger requires not only moist soil, but also moist air.

In the period of active growth of ginger, it is necessary to include organic and mineral top dressings in its diet. If you plant several roots in the pot, then after the shoots appear, transplant them into different containers. Otherwise, just ruin the ginger. Cultivation of this plant requires a space for roots that grow rapidly. To fully ripen the rhizome is enough for 10 months, after which it can be excavated and used. If you decide to grow ginger as an ornamental plant, then you should wait a couple of years to see its beautiful yellow flowers.

With the onset of autumn ginger gradually begins to fall into a hibernation. Shoots first turn yellow, and then completely die. If you planted in early spring, then now is the time to excavate ginger: the cultivation of the rhizome has come to an end. But you can not rush, allowing the plant to winter. To do this, put the pot with a rhizome in a cool and dry place with a temperature of at least 10 - 15 ° C. Here the plant will survive the winter, and in the spring it will give new shoots.

Where can I use ginger?

Ginger can be not only spicy, but also an excellent medicinal plant. About its medicinal properties, people have known for a long time. Even in ancient China, for example, tea with ginger root was treated with a cold. And the American Indians used the root of ginger as a remedy for nausea. From cold and nausea, ginger is treated now. Also compresses from it are used for pain in the back or chronic rheumatism. In addition, ginger normalizes the digestive system. Therefore, it is often used in the fight against obesity. It is useful to eat ginger and just like that - it contains a lot of vitamins, as well as micro- and macronutrients, which will not be superfluous in the body.