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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-633
Turmeric
Curcuma longa
Turmeric's rhizome is a dye as much as it is a spice - the same pigment that gives curry its colour will stain hands, cloth and countertops just as readily. It is used fresh, frozen or pickled, or dried and ground, and has a long history in Chinese, Ayurvedic, Islamic and Thai medicine for indigestion, arthritis and skin complaints, though modern research still backs only a few of those uses. Unlike most food crops it actually prefers shade over sun in a hot climate, and produces heavily grown as an understorey crop beneath a tree canopy. It dies back at the first hard freeze; where winters get that cold, the rhizomes are lifted and stored indoors rather than left in the ground.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun · Shade
- USDA zone
- USDA 8–11
- Soil
- Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moist · Wet
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 5.5–8
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 3–4 ft
- Mature spread
- 3–4 ft
- Plant spacing
- 18–24 in
- Root type
- Rhizome
- Spread pattern
- Root
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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