Adventures in Ginger

I love ginger I put it in nearly everything. Soup, tea, salad, we even use it to season our homemade sausage! I had a heck of a time finding some to grow though or even to buy at the super market. It all looks so unappetizing all brown and shriveled. Finally I started buying from our local markets. and this ginger was the freshest i'd ever seen. Cutting into it released the most heavenly ginger scent that drew all the occupants of our house to the kitchen to see what was cooking! after that first purchase I asked my ginger lady if she ever sold any of her ginger plants. I bought one from her a week later and promptly killed it! Purchased two more plants and they didn't last long either! One day she had the largest hunk of ginger I have ever seen! Of course I bought it! I decided that I would try and grow my own ginger from this massive hunk. It was a long process but it worked! As you can see in the pictures below I places it in a clear rectangle container and kept it on my kitchen counter. I would rinse it once every two to three days leaving no water standing in the container. After MONTHS, I didn't keep an accurate count sorry! I noticed it was sprouting! I promptly ran to my mother so she could rejoice with me! a few weeks after the sprouts had appeared I noticed the beginning of roots! So I took it out to my garden area I had reserved for planting my ginger. Where my failed ginger plants had already been planted. I laid it on the surface of the dirt and just lightly dusted the top with some dirt and covered it in mulch.

Failed ginger bulb

Successful ginger in its container

sprouts! you can see where the sprouts got their energy from the shriveled husk there. 

more sprouts

can you tell I'm excited about the sprouts?

Last close up

Here is a shot of the whole root. You can see how withered it started to look. Much like growing Iris's. 

How I planted it 3/31/2017

Happily growing! 5/2/2017 the green grass like shoots are the ginger plant.

Some of my "dead" ones sprouted again! 6/14/2017

6/14/2017

Cluster on the left is the large root section I planted the middle one is still pretty small and the one on the right is doing fairly well!

8/5/2017

9/1/2017

9/1/2017 bloom in progress

10/8/2017

10/8/2017 Bloom!

10/8/2017 Another Blooom!

Plumeria aka Frangipani

Here are few pictures of my Plumerias! I have no idea what varieties I have I have captions with the research I've done but if you know please feel free to correct me! I'd love to know for sure what I have!

Since I do not know the cultivator of any of my plumeria they are called NOID. for No Id I have read. Doesn't stop them from being lovely. 

Rainworth White

Plumeria Red Siam- Deep color, mauve, pretty rare plumeria. Very fragrant flowers.
Andaman, Cerise

Duvauchelle

Plumeria obtusa P.rubra, Celadine

This is actually two trees. the one on the right is pictured above. The one on the left is pictured below. 

This is the front and back of the same flower. This one smells the best of all the ones we have fills nearly our entire lot with its sweet smell. 

This is the same tree as the flower pictured above. 

Banana Trees Ocean View HI

I have banana trees! I've never lived anywhere before where I could grow banana trees!We bought two varieties from our local farmers market. Cuban (red shells) and Apple (small taste like an apple banana combo).

Here is what I have been doing, Watering heavily once a week and fertilizing once a month. When I first planted them I watered them heavily every few days. And they did not like it at all!

Here are some pictures of my Banana trees from planting to current!

10/8/2017

9/1/2017

8/5/2017

06/14/2017 Another angle on the Bananas.

06/14/2017  The leaves on my large Cuban are just unreal! they are completely covering one of the smaller Apple Banana trees!

04/16/2017  You can see some of the baby apple trees that are coming up in this picture.

03/25/2017

03/25/2017  You can see here how brown the trunks are in this picture from over watering them.

03/01/2017 Just planted You can see clearly in the picture above the red "trunks" of the Cuban Banana trees and the green of the Apple Banana trees.

03/01/2017