I have kept a few gingers over the winter in the basement light garden. Hedychium coronarium has flowered (probably thanks to a summer outdoors) and stays in fairly good condition on the floor, with its stalks receiving incidental light from a couple of fixtures hanging over neighboring plants. So total lumens are fairly low, but they suffice to keep the plant going during the winter months.

I absolutely love ginger, but I wasn't able to post to this before. I also love ginger flowers and have several types of ginger in my yard now. The blue ginger is blooming right now (see link below), but I also have red and white gingers, none of which are edible, but some of the flowers have very nice fragrances that are quite unique. As for edible ginger, I keep a jar of ginger paste (from an Indian market) that I use in soups, marinades, and stir fries, but not desserts. For desserts, I use ginger that I keep in the freezer. I should probably grow edible ginger. I bought ginger snaps at TJ's last week-end (along with some other more decadent cookies), but I think I should have made them myself. They were good but not quite gingery enough. I don't have any dried ginger. Lars Here is a link that might be useful:

Root division means exactly that - dividing the roots and planting the separated bits to create more plants. There's no hard and fast rule about how you go about it. Depending on the plant, I use an old strong kitchen knife to cut through the clumps, or just tear away sections with brute strength. But the following info might help: First give the plant a good trim, removing as much as half its height. Water it and leave it for a week or so to recover. Some gardeners like to dig out a whole plant and break or cut it into several sections, each with plenty of roots attached. Then plant in a pot and fill with potting mix. Others prefer to gently pull out a stem from the base of a plant, making sure that some roots remain attached. 10-15cm lengths are about right. Then place it into one of the half filled pots and top it up with potting mix. Give it a good soak and place it in a sheltered spot out of direct sunlight. As for 'treating' roots like ginger, and bulbs like garlic, to prevent them sprouting, it's usually done by spraying the harvested bits with some chemical or other which inhibits sprouting - as far as I know it's a hormone of some kind. You need to check with the purchase outlet to find out whether their suppliers do this or not - they may not know, and it may be difficult to find out. Your best insurance against this is to buy certified organic produce.

I grow 30 or so different varieties of ginger and fertilize with water soluble 20-20-20 and leave all stalks standing until they terminally bloom. Each stalk helps the rhizome grow and produce new underground growth. I don't cut any stalk until it's done it's thing