I have to go to work...will try to work on this from there...or when I get home. Nancy

Don't be afraid to plant ginger because it is invasive - it grows fairly slowly and is easy to dig up. You would have to have a tiny yard to worry about ginger being invasive - I can eat it faster than it can grow, and it is an attractive plant. I love the flowers because they are so fragrant. If you have neighbors who have invasive ginger growing in their yards, perhaps they can give you some. I go through a lot of ginger root (and just used up the last that I have today), and I use it whenever I make Tom Yom soup. To the soup I add Kaffir lime, lemongrass, and Yuzu juice, all of which I get from my back yard. I grow Kaffir lime and Yuzu in large wooden planters, but I grow the lemongrass in the ground. Right now it is still too hot to enjoy soup, but I made it anyway and included a Habanero chili in the batch that I made. I also use garlic in the soup, and garlic is a good accompaniment to ginger in many dishes. I also use ginger root in Indian dishes, especially garbanzo and lentil stews.

I'm a bit ginger obsessed. Use it sometimes everyday, especially in a morning juice...ginger, beet, kale/spinach, carrot... So i don't need storage. But i do keep a bit in the freezer just in case. In the fridge crisper drawer it keeps fine in a baggie for a month. (depending on how fresh it was purchased). Vodka is second best to the freezer. (And makes a darn fine martini). Dried and powdered spice is for cakes and bakery items like cookies. Not the same at all as fresh. Though from the same root, it is a different animal like many fresh-vs-dried spice items. Planting it is easy but not so easy in colder climates without a very good green thumb...bringing indoors and giving it a very sunny window and special care to keep it happy, also with lots of air flow. In another home past, i had rosemary tree, a basil tree, a bay tree, lemongrass, etc...but had a very sunny window and needed not much care. I have a sunny window here but nothing does well at all. Even with a green thumb. Seed starting and micro greens are about my limit. Around the March month we get fresh plump ginger in NY. Not sure if that is common elsewhere. The best for pickling or making candied ginger. It does not have the 'aged' hard skins and fibers so common in the grocery. I prefer just to grate it microplane the rest of the year.

First, congratulations, that's a good sized ginger plant you have. It thrived in your environment and care. I've heard that about ginger not usually blooming in the first year as well, but that doesn't match my experience. Mine almost always blooms, and now that I'm living in north Georgia, and I grow all my ginger in containers, and all my ginger is "first year" ginger. Empirically, I think a lack of nutrients and lower water levels stimulate blooming. I apply light fertilizer to my ginger plants every waning moon (just after the full moon), but I don't fertilize at all after the fall equinox. Our weather also usually gets drier in the fall, and I don't water as often as we get rain in the summer. Nearly all of my ginger plants bloom every year. That's my observation, YMMV. When I lived in Florida (Gulf coast, northwestern FL), I had both "in ground" ginger plants and container ginger plants. Second year plants grow to somewhere between 4 and 9 times as much rhizome by weight as first year harvest. However, if it gets too wet and rots in the ground, worst case you lose it all, and "best case" (not really good either), you get a weakened, half rotted plant that doesn't grow or produce as well as a first year plant. Here's my thinking on this. If you save 4 "seed rhizomes" and plant them 18-24 inches apart in that planter next year, tend them the same way you did this year, you'll lock in the bottom of second year production. Save 6 "seed rhizomes" and your in the middle of good second year production. Any rhizome you have left after that is edible now. And you don't have to worry about your "seed rhizomes" rotting in the ground. You can also start those "seed rhizomes" indoors, to get bigger plants/better production when you do move them outdoors. I start mine after the winter solstice, again on the waning moon (much of my growing calendar is set by the moon and sun). I have to use a heat mat and supplemental (white fluorescent) light to get mine started, although I've had some luck with the heat mat and a south facing window. Commercial ginger growers harvest everything every year. I don't know of any commercial growers that leave ginger plants in the ground over winter. Oh, and when I'm selecting which rhizomes to save for "seed" for next year, the ones that bloom and go dormant in the fall are the ones I use for seed. Any plants that don't bloom and stay green through January (or sometimes March) in my well lit, warm "tropical room" are my spring "cooking ginger." That's not an issue for you this year, but next year, if you plant more than one plant, you might face that choice and situation. Also, you might try mixing some turmeric plants in with your ginger next year. Similar growth, similar requirements for weather and soil conditions, and IMO, prettier foliage, or at least some variety in the foliage. Turmeric rhizome ("root") is available from some grocers and "health food" produce sources. Whole Foods in the Atlanta area carries it in their Atlanta stores (formerly Harry's Farmers Market stores).