Ginger Harvest!

As per usual, I harvested my ginger in late March and ended up with more than I normally use (yeah, I usually use about the equivalent of 1 finger's length in an entire year).  I gave away a lot of it, and planted a portion for next year.  I plan to try Alton Brown's homemade Ginger Ale, and, if I have enough, AB's candied ginger.

I've found that ginger is one of the easy plants to grow in Austin (in a pot, of course) - it rivals garlic for ease of growing and actually takes just as long (longer actually since ginger takes almost a full year, while garlic takes about 6-7 months).  I usually just have to remember to water it - and it's usually on my list of plants to recommend for people who don't garden, especially people who have bright filtered light, but no direct sunlight. 

I've blogged about ginger before, here and here, but have been growing it each year since 2011.  I started with a piece about the length and size of my index finger split into 3 pieces; and I haven't purchased ginger since - everything I grow comes from ginger grown from that original piece.  Now then, of course, if you use a lot of ginger, you'll probably want to grow more than just the one large pot that I usually do.