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🔗 Save $6,000 A Year with My Complete Amish Home-Saving Method I teach:
https://eliasyoder.com
Look in your crisper drawer right now. That knob of ginger with the little green nub starting to poke out of the side — the one you've been meaning to throw away? That's not ginger going bad. That's a plant trying to grow. And in this video, I'll show you how to take a piece of store-bought ginger and turn it into a plant that keeps giving you fresh ginger right on your windowsill, no garden required.
I'm Esther Yoder, wife of Elias, here in Lancaster County. My mother taught me at her kitchen counter that a great many things you pay for at the store will grow themselves for free if you only give them the chance. Ginger is one of the easiest there is. You don't need a greenhouse, you don't need fancy lights, you don't even need a garden. You need a pot, a windowsill, and a little patience.
In this video I'll walk you through it the way it was handed down to me — how to pick the right piece at the store, how to wake it up so it sprouts, how to plant it shallow the way ginger wants, where to set it, how to water it without rotting it, and when to harvest so the plant keeps producing for y
https://eliasyoder.com
Look in your crisper drawer right now. That knob of ginger with the little green nub starting to poke out of the side — the one you've been meaning to throw away? That's not ginger going bad. That's a plant trying to grow. And in this video, I'll show you how to take a piece of store-bought ginger and turn it into a plant that keeps giving you fresh ginger right on your windowsill, no garden required.
I'm Esther Yoder, wife of Elias, here in Lancaster County. My mother taught me at her kitchen counter that a great many things you pay for at the store will grow themselves for free if you only give them the chance. Ginger is one of the easiest there is. You don't need a greenhouse, you don't need fancy lights, you don't even need a garden. You need a pot, a windowsill, and a little patience.
In this video I'll walk you through it the way it was handed down to me — how to pick the right piece at the store, how to wake it up so it sprouts, how to plant it shallow the way ginger wants, where to set it, how to water it without rotting it, and when to harvest so the plant keeps producing for y
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00You buy a knob of ginger at the store. You use a piece for soup, and the rest goes in
00:05the bottom drawer of your refrigerator. Two weeks later, you find it again, soft on one
00:11end, wrinkled and tired, a little blue fuzz starting where it touched the plastic. So
00:17you throw it in the compost, and next time, you buy another knob and do the very same
00:22thing again. And here is what will sting once you see it. That ginger was not spoiled the
00:28way you think. Those little bumps swelling along the surface, that was not rot. That
00:34was the root trying to live. You threw away a plant that was reaching for the one thing
00:39your cold drawer would never give it, heat. That is the whole secret. Ginger is a tropical
00:46root made for the hot, wet parts of the world where the ground stays warm the year round.
00:52Set a piece in a chilly windowsill, and you are asking a summer plant to wake up in the
00:58winter, and it will sit and sulk and rot before it ever sends out a shoot. Give it proper
01:04warmth like a summer day, and the same piece nearly grows itself. Get the heat right, and
01:11you will never buy ginger more than one time again.
01:15I am Esther Yoder. My people came over from the Palatinate in 1838 and settled here in Lancaster
01:22County, and I keep house on 110 acres with my husband Elias. Before I show you the rest,
01:29if you want my complete method, everything Elias and I do to run a household on next to nothing,
01:35I have put it all in one place. You can find it at EliasYoder.com. That is where I teach
01:41the
01:41whole Amish home saving system, and the link is down below this video. Now let me show you how to
01:48do it,
01:48step by step, the way it ought to be done. Start by picking your ginger right there at the store,
01:54because the piece you choose matters more than you would think. You want one that is firm and plump
02:00and heavy in the hand, not a piece that has gone soft, and not one that has dried out and
02:05shriveled
02:06at the ends. A good piece feels solid when you press it, with skin that is taut and smooth, not
02:12loose
02:13and papery. Then look close at the surface of it. You will see little bumps and nubs along the root,
02:19almost exactly like the eyes on a seed potato. Those bumps are the buds, and that is where your new
02:25shoots will come from. If you can find a piece that already has a bit of a greenish or pale
02:30yellow nub,
02:31just starting to swell, take that one. That is the best piece in the whole bin, because that root has
02:37already decided it wants to grow, and all you are doing is helping it along. Look for a piece with
02:44several of those eyes too, not just the one, because every eye is a chance at another plant. And do
02:50not
02:50think you need some special seed ginger ordered out of a catalog. The plain ginger from the regular
02:56grocery sprouts just fine, and it has the good sense of being a kind you already know is fit to
03:02eat,
03:03since you have been eating it all along. When you bring your piece home, set it in a bowl of
03:08warm
03:08water and let it soak overnight, the better part of a full day. There is a reason for this, and
03:14it is
03:14not just an old habit. The store will sometimes treat ginger so it will not sprout while it sits on
03:20the
03:20shelf, and a good long soak helps wash that off and rinse it away. More than that, the soak tells
03:27the
03:27root that the dry spell is over, that the rains have come, and that it is time to wake up
03:32and get
03:33to work. Think of how a seed lies still in the dry ground all through a drought, and then, the
03:38moment the rain comes, it knows to break open. The root is no different. A lot of people skip this
03:44step,
03:45and I would not. It costs you nothing but a bowl of water and one night's patience, and it makes
03:50a
03:50real difference in how quick that root comes around. If your piece is a big one with several eyes, you
03:56can
03:56take a clean knife and cut it into chunks, leaving an eye or two on each, and let the cut
04:01faces dry and
04:02callus over for a day before you plant them. That way, one knob from the store becomes three or four
04:08plants, and you have multiplied your dollar before you have even begun. While your ginger is soaking,
04:14get your tray ready. You do not need anything fancy. Any low tray or shallow pot will do the job,
04:20just so long as it has a hole or two in the bottom for the water to drain out, because
04:26ginger sitting
04:27in standing water will rot on you every single time. If your tray has no holes, take a nail and
04:34make a few
04:34yourself. Better that than to lose the whole crop to wet feet. Fill that tray most of the way up
04:41with a
04:41light, loose potting soil, something soft and airy that crumbles in your fingers, not a heavy garden clay
04:48that packs down hard and holds the wet. If all you have is dense soil, work in a good handful
04:55of sand
04:56or some old crumbled leaf mold to open it up and let it breathe. Then take your soaked piece and
05:03lay
05:03it right down on top of that soil, with the buds pointing up toward the sky where the shoots will
05:09want
05:09to climb. Cover it over with about an inch of that same loose soil. You want it tucked in under
05:15there like a
05:16child under a blanket, covered and kept warm, but not buried down deep where it cannot find its way
05:23out. If you are planting several pieces in the one tray, give them each a few inches of room so
05:29the
05:30roots are not fighting one another later on. Now here comes the part that makes all the difference,
05:35and it is the very part everybody leaves out. That tray has got to be kept warm. And I do
05:42not mean room
05:43warm. I do not mean cozy by your standards. I mean properly warm, like a hot summer afternoon,
05:50somewhere right up around 80 degrees, and held there steady. You are giving that tropical root the
05:56summer it has been waiting its whole life for. In a kitchen like yours, that warm spot might be the
06:02top of your refrigerator, where the motor underneath gives off a low steady heat all day and all night
06:08without you doing a thing. It might be a high shelf up near a wood stove, where the warmth rises
06:15and
06:15gathers and stays. It might be the warmest inside wall of the house, the one that catches the afternoon
06:21sun and holds it. Put your hand flat against a few different spots through the day, and you will feel
06:28for yourself where the warmth lives in your house. It is not always where you would guess. Wherever you choose,
06:34cover the tray loosely with something to hold the moisture in close, and keep that soil just barely
06:41damp. Damp like a cloth you have wrung out hard, never soggy and never wet, because wet is what brings
06:49the rot. Then you wait, and the one thing you must do is keep it warm the whole while. Let
06:55it go cold for
06:56too long, and you have lost it. A cold night now and again will not undo you, but a cold
07:02corner day after
07:03day surely will. Inside of a week or two, if you have kept the warmth right, you will see the
07:09first
07:09little green shoot break up through the surface of the soil. Now mind this, the shoots come up first,
07:15before the roots ever show, so do not go digging down to check on it and disturb everything. Just leave
07:22it be and let it work. Patience is half the gardening here. One single piece of ginger may send up
07:29two or
07:29three shoots, and here is the wonder of it. Each one of those shoots is a whole new ginger plant
07:35in
07:35its own right. If a piece sits in good steady warmth for three full weeks and does nothing at all,
07:42no shoot, no swelling, nothing, then it simply was not a live one to begin with. Set that one aside
07:49and
07:50go on with the rest, no harm done. And treat every single piece as its own little crop, because they
07:56each wake at their own pace in their own time, and you cannot rush them along together or expect them
08:03all to come up the same morning. The Lord did not make them to march in a line. One will
08:08be up and
08:09reaching for the light while its neighbor is still thinking it over, and both are doing exactly right.
08:15Once a piece has a good shoot or two standing well up out of the soil, then it is time
08:20to move it gently
08:21into a deeper pot. Six or eight inches across is plenty of room, so the roots have space to spread
08:28out, because ginger sends out a wide reaching root system underneath the soil, and it does not like
08:35to be cramped. Fill your new pot about two-thirds with that same loose soil before you begin. Lift your
08:43piece out careful so you do not snap off the tender shoots, and if you have several growing close together,
08:50you can ease them apart now and pot them up separate, each one to make its own plant.
08:57Set it down on fresh soil in the new pot. Cover the root up to where the green begins, and
09:04press the soil
09:05down soft and firm all around it, so there are no hollow pockets left underneath for the roots to dry
09:12out in. Then back to the warm spot it goes. Keep it warm, keep it just barely damp, and water
09:19it from
09:20underneath when you can, by setting the pot in a shallow dish of water and letting the soil drink
09:26up what it needs from below. Watering from below draws the roots downward, looking for the wet, and gives
09:33you a stronger plant than splashing it from the top ever will. In a good many weeks, and it is
09:40weeks not days,
09:41so settle in for it. You will have your own ginger to dig, and a piece of every harvest goes
09:47right back in
09:48the soil to start the next one. You buy ginger one time, and after that, a warm corner of your
09:55kitchen
09:55gives it to you for free, year on year, as long as you keep that warmth going.
10:02Now I want you to think for a minute about why nobody ever taught you this. There is a whole
10:07row of
10:08fresh ginger at the grocery, priced by the pound, and the store would just as soon you came back and
10:14bought it again every two weeks for the rest of your life. They are not lying to you. There is
10:19no man in
10:20a back room scheming to keep you from your windowsill. It is worse than that, in a way, because it
10:26is a thing
10:26nobody even has to plan. The whole arrangement of how we live now, buy it, use a little, let the
10:33rest
10:34spoil, go buy it again. That arrangement quietly profits when you forget that a root is a living
10:40thing that wants to grow. A people who can grow their own are not very good customers, you see.
10:46There is no money in your independence. The whole machine runs smoother when every kitchen has forgotten
10:52what every kitchen used to know. Nobody has to coordinate it. It just runs on its own, on our forgetting.
10:59And the only way out of it is to remember what the old women already knew, that you can grow
11:04it yourself,
11:05in your own house, from a piece you already paid for, and that the knowing of it cannot be taken
11:11from
11:11you once you have it in your hands. So here is what I would like you to do. Try it.
11:16Pick out one good,
11:18firm piece next time you are at the store, soak it overnight, tuck it in a warm tray, and keep
11:23it warm.
11:24Then come back here to the comments and tell me how it went, and tell me what county you are
11:29in,
11:29and how old your house is, because I love to know where you are all writing from, and what kind
11:34of home
11:34you are keeping. I read every one of them, and it does my heart good to see this knowledge spreading
11:40back out into kitchens all over the country, one warm tray at a time. Every home in this country has
11:47leaks. Food, heat, water, electricity, laundry, repairs, and waste. Places where the money quietly
11:55runs out without you ever seeing it go. Inside our Amish home saving system and community,
12:01Lias and I help you find those leaks and start fixing them one by one. The link is in the
12:07description.
12:07Keep that little tray warm through the cold months, and come spring you will have something green,
12:13and growing, and entirely your own, started from a piece most folks would have thrown away. There is
12:19no reason under heaven you cannot grow summer on top of your own refrigerator while the snow comes down
12:25outside. Try it, and write and tell me how it came up.
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