Plant · P-632

Ginger

Zingiber officinale

Ginger is grown for its warm, pungent rhizome - used fresh, dried and ground, or pickled young while it is still mild enough to eat raw - but the whole plant earns its keep: young shoots and leaves cook as a potherb, flowers are eaten raw, and mature leaves wrap food for cooking. It is one of the best-documented medicinal herbs there is, used for every kind of nausea from morning sickness to motion sickness, plus indigestion, colds and sore joints. It wants a long, hot, wet season and shelter from both strong wind and full sun - it grows well under a tree canopy rather than out in the open, which makes it a genuine understorey crop rather than a problem to work around. It dies back wherever the ground freezes, so outside its hardiness range it is dug as an annual before frost or kept potted and moved under cover.