When is the best time to plant ginger?

Old ginger is the mother part of fresh ginger, also known as dried ginger. Usually, the young ginger is picked in winter after it matures, dried and sold the next year, so most of the old ginger is ginger from the previous year. It has a spicy taste and can be used as a seasoning, but it is also a good health food ingredient. For example, it can be used to make ginger candy, brown sugar ginger water, etc. So when is the best time to plant ginger? Let’s learn more about it below.

When is the best time to plant ginger?

The planting time of old ginger is generally around the Qingming Festival every year, which is from March to April every year. The time in the north may be a little later, around April to May.

How to grow ginger?

1. Land preparation and fertilization

Choose a plot with fertile soil, loose soil layer and pH value less than 7, plow it 30 cm deep, and apply sufficient base fertilizer. Select mature organic fertilizer and superphosphate, mix them evenly, pile them into beds of about 20 cm, and dig deep grooves on the surface of the beds for sowing.

2. Disinfection of ginger

Choose old ginger of the year that is large and plump, has shiny skin, fresh flesh, hard texture, is free of diseases and pests, and has not been frozen as seed ginger. Before sowing ginger, soak it in 500 times 50% carbendazim solution for disinfection, soak it in 20% wood ash solution for 20 minutes, or soak it in 0.5% potassium permanganate solution for 30 minutes.

3. Sowing method

You can adopt the flat sowing method, keep it horizontal when sowing the ginger pieces, and gently press them into the mud with your hands to ensure that the ginger sprouts are roughly the same height as the trench surface. After sowing, cover the soil in time with a thickness of about 4.5 cm, and then rake the surface thoroughly.

4. Water and fertilizer management

Old ginger has a greater demand for water, especially in the early stages of growth and flowering. The soil needs to be kept moist, but waterlogging should also be avoided. In terms of fertilization, in the early stage, since the plants are not large, less fertilizer is needed, so generally less fertilizer should be applied. In the middle and late stages of growth, when the plants grow larger and the underground parts begin to grow into ginger pieces, more fertilizer is needed, so more fertilizer should be applied frequently, mainly compound fertilizer .

5. Harvest at the right time

The harvesting of old ginger is generally carried out from mid-to-late October to November. It is harvested when the above-ground parts of the ginger plants begin to wither and turn yellow and the rhizomes are fully swollen and mature. This must be done before frost to prevent freeze rot.

In general, the planting method of old ginger is basically the same as that of fresh ginger, except for the difference in harvesting time. Usually, old ginger is harvested in mid-to-late October or November, while young ginger can be harvested in early August.