Posted on: 02 March, 2005
Author: Linda Paquette
Asian and Mid-Eastern dishes often have a subtle and distinctive flavor that comes from spicing the dish at the end of cooking with fresh ginger root. As these dishes grow in popularity, many grocery produce departments stock this pleasingly pungent root for use in homemade dishes. Your favorite grocers produce department is also the best place to find ginger root for growing. What we call fresh ginger root is actually the rhizome of the ginger (Zingiber officinale) plant. Choose a smooth, shiny root that has some buds beginning. These will look similar to the eyes of a potato. Your ginger plant will grow two to four feet tall. Slender stems and narrow, glossy leaves may reach up to a foot long and resemble the foliage of a lily. Occasionally, your ginger may produce a yellow green flower, but flowers are both rare and unnecessary for the health of the plant. Ginger is not frost hardy so in temperate areas bring plants indoors for the winter and ignore it! Foliage will yellow and die back, but the plant will return to growth in the spring. Harvest ginger after the rhizome has grown three to four months. Since the best time to plant ginger is in the spring, this usually means a fall harvest. Harvested ginger root is usually sun-dried for longer preservation. It can either be stored in a dry cupboard or refrigerated. Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com