Ginger has thrived at our place since I learned to think about what it gives and what it needs in terms of its connections to the other plants around it, to me as the ginger-grower, and to me and my family as the ginger-users.
Ginger (Zingiber officinale) is a super useful plant. But no matter how potentially useful a plant is, its usefulness is only actualized when you learn to use it consistently. The more consistently you use a plant the more useful it becomes, and the more you come to rely on it, the better care you take of it.
I’ve been keen on ginger for a long time, but I’ve neglected and lost a lot of ginger plants because I kept putting them in places where I’d forget to take care of them and use them.
Ginger connections…
Plants that thrive in what I call “a RealFood garden”* are plants with connectionsi. The more the better. Here are some of the connections I think about when I think of ginger.
*Can be linked to the other post I’ve sent with this one, “Connections in a RealFood Garden.”
… to the kitchen
I use ginger in salad dressings and its also a key ingredient in my sauerkraut. I’m not very good (yet) at using it in other culinary ways, but there’s always hope. (If you have easy tips for adding fresh ginger to meals that don’t involve taking classes in Asian Cookery, please share in the comments down the bottom!)
We make ginger tea regularly. Cooled ginger tea quenches thirst much more effectively than water.
And a cup of ginger tea before a meal helps digestion and may provide a raft of other benefits from reduced inflammation to helping keep cholesterol levels balanced. Which leads us to the next kind of connection.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
