I put some fresh ginger roots that I purchased from my local farmer's market
into my garden a few months ago. They started sprouting and now have leaf
stalks around 1 foot high. I live in SE Florida - zone 10 so my main gardening
season is the fall and winter. Summers are completely dead for me - way too hot
and wet to grow many items.

I just bought some more ginger root and will be planting that in my garden
within the next day or two. For the rest of the world here is what I found in
Deni Bown's book The New Encyclopedia of Herbs & Their Uses: Plant ginger in
well-drained, rich, neutral to alkaline soil, in sun or partial shade, with
high humidity. Ginger is treated as an annual or biennial crop.; plants need a
10 month growing season for optimum rhizome production. Oldest growths may be
removed when new shoots apear. They are hardy from zone 7 to zone 11. Ginger
is a perennial - so I guess I could leave it in the ground forever if I was
growing it as an ornamental as opposed to wanting to harvest it for
culinary/medicinal uses. It can grow up to 5 feet high and has yellow-green
flowers, with a deep purple, yellow-marked lip (mine haven't flowered yet).

I would try growing them indoors too in a medium to large container in a well
lighted area. That way you could over winter them in areas colder than zone
7-11 then plant them outside during the summer or just keep the container
outside during the summer.

Hope this information helps, take care,
Lynn Smythe
Delray Beach, FL
coming soon: www.butterflygypsy.com