Hi George, Beside for cooking, I added some slices of fresh ginger on my hot milk glass or boiled water with slices of ginger and Javanese sugar (palm sugar?). Yummy. I planted some roots/tubers purchased from Asia market. I hope it will survive here in high-desert. Can't wait to enjoy hot milk with fresh ginger from my own garden. Good luck.

I'm not saying either of your ginger varieties are edible, but IF one of them were, it's probably the first one that smells like Pinesol. I would guess it smells and tastes that way because of the age of the rhizome. (What we refer to as ginger "root" is actually the rhizome of the plant.) There are two different schools of thought. Some homegrowers collect rhizomes before the plants flower, at about 8-9 months old at the latest, but sometimes you can harvest as early as 4 months. Others say to harvest once all the growth has died back for the winter. It'll look like your plant is dead, but really it's dormant. The roots are still alive and that is what counts. Dig up the plant and you will see stringy things coming off the bottom of the bulbous part - those are the actual roots. Anyways, while it's dug up, harvest some of the rhizome and pick a healthy-looking part with lots of eyes to replant - it'll sprout in spring so you keep your ginger stock going. Try this with the pinesol variety and see if your rhizomes come out a little more like traditional ginger. One thing to remember is that homemade/grown things always taste a little different than store-bought ones. To sprout storebought ginger, soak it overnight in water. This helps remove any growth inhibitors that may have been sprayed - and yes, even organic ginger can be sprayed with organic growth inhibitors! "Organic" simply means the compound is found naturally, not that it isn't applied and isn't harmful to your health. After soaking overnight, plant part (or all) of the rhizome in a bit of really nutritious soil - preferably loaded with compost. You want to give these babies as many nutrients as possible. The important part is to make sure the section you plant has at least 2 eyes. They look similar to eyes on a potato. Those are where the growth sprouts from. It sounds like past that, you don't have an issue getting the plant to grow. Even though in its native regions, ginger is an evergreen, in northern climates, it is a perennial, so it dies back in the winter and respouts in the spring without you doing anything. Do NOT water it once it has gone dormant or the rhizomes may rot in the soil and you won't get new shoots come warmer weather. I would assume those that claim their ginger died in winter actually just had dormant ginger and would have seen new growth in the spring. Hope this helps!

My 'super market' ginger was damaged by the cold snap, too. But when I dumped the pot, there was good, viable ginger root growing - the cold damaged parts were at or near the surface. I 'planted' and lost a dozen pieces of ginger before I discovered one doesn't 'plant' ginger; one simply makes a slight depression in the soil and sets the piece of ginger root in it. Keep it moist and in a week or two, you will see signs of growth. Being this far north, I plant in pots in order to move them to shelter during cold snaps.

Bekados I bought some ginger to use in cooking late this past spring. I used some and left a half-palm sized piece out on a raised kitchen counter. After a month or so, I noticed a small sprout, like a potato eye just forming. After a week or two longer I could tell it was green, and after another week or two it grew to about a half inch high. I watched it get to about an inch. By that time, my wife was curious, and I suggested to her that she might get more ginger if she planted it. She found a six-inch pot and put some really awful potting soil in it. Terrible stuff. Mostly sand and charcoal, I have no idea where she got that junk. Anyway, she planted the ginger just under the soil surface, and put the pot in bright shade near the kitchen door where we could watch it. It took off. Sometimes we could tell a difference overnight (!!) It is now almost three feet tall and starting to send up a second shoot. I guess it's time to put it in the ground. But since I still don't know whether it prefers sun or shade, I think we'll have to move it around a little to find out.