Ginger Growing Diary: Recording My Experience of Growing Ginger
Ever since I last helped a farmer friend dig ginger (see "Digging Up a Mountain of Ginger"), I have felt how much fun planting and harvesting can be, and I had always wanted to understand it from the very beginning: how ginger is planted.
I asked out of curiosity whether they would plant ginger again this year, and where. There was a reason for asking: because ginger suffers from continuous cropping obstacles, the same ginger plot cannot be planted with ginger again for 8 years. The soil-borne disease problem, known as soft rot, is serious and cannot be overcome. If farmers are not careful, all their hard work may be lost, so finding a new plot to plant is the safer approach.
I heard that the farmer friends were recently using an excavator to prepare the land, and that they still had to use manual labor to pick the stones out of the soil. These joyless, hard chores seemed too embarrassing for me, a volunteer, to do. When I received the invitation to plant ginger on the weekend, I thought the new ginger plot must be ready.
My wife and I arrived at last year's ginger plot, but while circling around nearby we could not find the road. Just then the farmer's third sister-in-law happened to come up the mountain to feed the chickens and saw us, so she led us along a long stretch of mountain road. It felt as if we had crossed over a hill before we finally reached the new ginger plot.
For those of us who have lived in cities for years, our knowledge is so limited about things the textbooks did not teach, the news did not report, and our work does not cover. So this is how ginger is planted. The wholehearted planting process makes a person feel grounded and gives a sense of accomplishment.
This ginger-planting experience brought new stimulation and joy to life and opened up new horizons. Working in beautiful nature, feeling the sunshine, wind, soil and plants, seeing eagles flying in the sky and squirrels leaping in the woods, made me cherish this land even more.
In spare time, getting closer to nature and taking part in the farming process gives a new understanding and appreciation of ingredients and the earth, while also relieving the stress accumulated on ordinary days. A farming experience is a healthy, educational activity worth joining.