In Today’s post, let’s look into harvesting ginger and turmeric, grown organically in containers. When to Harvest and How to harvest.
About 7 Months back, we planted some pieces of grocery bought ginger and turmeric rhizomes. Let’s take a quick recap of that step by step process which is common for both ginger and turmeric.
- Choose your rhizomes – they must be free of wrinkles and with visible eyes.
- Cut into multiple pieces – each piece must have atleast 2 eyes.
- Soak in water for about 12 hours.
- Plant them in a well draining soil containing at least 50% compost like decomposed cowdung or vermicompost. You can use garden soil or coco coir or a mix of both.
- You can first plant in smaller containers or directly plant in larger containers of atleast 12 inch size.
- Plant them 1 to 2 inches deep with eyes facing upwards or sidewards. Best time to plant is spring or summer so that you can harvest in fall months.
- Water thoroughly and then keep in bright indirect sunlight until you get first set of leaves.
- Rooting and shooting should start within a week, you can keep in direct sunlight of atleast 4 to 6 hours.
- After a month, if you have grown in smaller containers, transplant each plant into a larger container of atleast 12 inches.
- Fertilize once a month With one or Two Handfuls Of Compost and water thoroughly twice a week or more depending on your climatic conditions.
Now Let’s look into harvesting:
Ginger and Turmeric can be harvested any time after 6 to 8 months or when you see the plant starts to dieback and leaves turning yellow and dry.
You need to stop watering a week before harvesting. Then just loosen the soil in the container by tapping it or if you have grown in a poly bag, you can loosen the soil by tapping and patting. That’s it. Remove the dirt and air dry the rhizomes before storing.